Monday, August 24, 2009

Army Trains For Battle For Mental Health {UpDated}

Sunday, NPR Morning Edition, 08.23.09 {4min 5sec.}

Daniel Zwerdling, of NPR, continues his outstanding research into and reporting on the Army's, and the Military's, care of returning soldiers suffering from PTSD and other possible mental problems developed as to serving in these wars and occupations.



Top link brings you to the transcript, and if you do a search at their site under Daniels name you'll find the many previous reports by him and related on these issues.

They can try all the training idea's that pop into their heads, extreme trauma situations bring on post traumatic stress, be it combat, living in combat theaters, or in someone's life, that's the reality.

You can't 'train' against trauma's that haven't happened yet, the individual experiences seen and done, unless you want to develop ways to turn intelligent humans into living robots or develop, as we already have with flying drones, robots that destroy other's in our wars of choice.

It's not 'before training', it's finding the best ways to take care of those who have developed what once wasn't within them, be it from war or in civilian experiences, but now exists in different levels in those we send to invade and occupy.

War's are the total opposite of anyone's upbringing, especially in civil societies, hell military training is in the preparation of turning one into a soldier to defend ones country. Traumatic experience of combat, and even living within, of all that happens, and the stress of 24/7 possibility of what's coming taxes the minds and the reality humans live in and by as intelligent beings. Mental problems develope from those experiences, being lived over and over in ones mind. They don't only happen to someone considered not strong of mind, even those we would least expect, the so called strong, develop the stressor's that can trigger the reliving of these experiences, sometimes fatally.

War's should not be fought of choice, choice of a few we have as our leaders, civilian and military, not by civil societies! War's should be as we have always stated but rarely followed in our modern history, fought as an Absolute Last Resort! And the results of War's, physical and mental problems of, not only as to the soldiers who we send but those we invade and occupy, should stand right alongside the Absolute Last Resort we should have as our policies as a Leading Nation on this Planet!

If this society and country wants to Cheer on these War's of Choice then be Ready to Pony up the Extreme Costs of the Failed Policies Followed!! And that doesn't just mean in monetary costs but also in the cost of a weaken security to it's citizens, no matter where they are or go, from the blowback!

Veterans forsake studies of stress

Stigma impedes search for remedies

Researchers testing ways to treat the psychological wounds of war among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are encountering a serious roadblock: a shortage of willing study participants.

A strong stigma in the military associated with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, is blamed for the reluctance of combat veterans to take part in a pair of treatment programs being evaluated by staff from the Veterans Administration in Boston at facilities in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire, study directors said................


This doesn't help, especially as the country was extremely slow in even listening to our brother's returing from 'Nam and the veterans who started coming forward from WWII and Korea over these many years!!

UpDate: This just hit my inbox

PTSD Compensation Rules

Secretary Shinseki Moves to Simplify PTSD Compensation Rules

WASHINGTON – Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki announced the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is taking steps to assist Veterans seeking compensation for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

“The hidden wounds of war are being addressed vigorously and comprehensively by this administration as we move VA forward in its transformation to the 21st century,” said Secretary Shinseki.

The VA is publishing a proposed regulation today in the Federal Register to make it easier for a Veteran to claim service connection for PTSD by reducing the evidence needed if the stressor claimed by a Veteran is related to fear of hostile military or terrorist activity. Comments on the proposed rule will be accepted over the next 60 days. A final regulation will be published after consideration of all comments received.....................


Great advancement on this issue and once again long overdue!!

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