Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Dulce #4
How many soldiers do you suppose suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which was known as shell-shock during WWI? In other words, how many soldiers who have been in battle—who have killed or who have seen someone killed—are so impacted by the event that it haunts them, and are thus limited by this experience from moving forward in their lives?
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It's quite tragic how many people are affected by PTSD, which is a lot. Most soldiers who return home are either injured or have been away for a long time and when they get back its very difficult to readjust to society, which limits their ability to move forward with their lives. Some soldiers lose their minds and end up drinking their problems away or taking their own lives. For those who try to fight it and move forward are discriminated by employers denying them of any work in fear that they may too one day snap. Ultimately, war is terrible thing that changes one's life forever and we are constantly reminded by it everyday, even as we try to move on, it will never let us forget.
ReplyDeleteIts hard to forget seeing someone killed and there really isn't a lot of support given to soldiers after they are no longer usable. Its also probably engraved in a soldiers mind that talking about their life on the line is a sign of weakness. So I would assume the number of soldiers suffering from PTSD to be in the thousands.
ReplyDeleteThere are probably two outcomes for the soldiers suffering from PTSD.
1. Some soldiers lose their minds and end up drinking their problems away or taking their own lives. - dtwelve
or
2. They take on a career as a police officer, firefighter or some other career that helps them make reparations for the people they killed or saw be killed.
I have read that every 8th soldier undergoes this kind of depression. I was surprised, I was expecting a higher percentage. Since our toddler hood we have been thought not to hit or not to be aggressive. We could here "not nice, not OK" etc. from all corners. We were growing up with a common sense that younger should be protected by older and weaker by stronger. That is how the society works in general or at least everyone supposes it is so. When soldiers are trained, no one really prepares them for the terror they are about to face. They teach them how to be strong and how to fight. All these kinds of trainings cannot be, however, compared with the real situation on the battle field. The soldiers all of the sudden are exposed to the opposite of moral values. They are forced to get killed or to kill. I kind of think that at the moment of fire shoot, it is equal because in that particular second, they do not know who is gonna get killed and who maybe in the next coming minutes. No one wants to die, thus they are forced to take risks just because of higher authorities.
ReplyDeleteSoldiers in "work" live in the society where it is OK to get violent, to kill, to be aggressive...and no one will get judged afterwards. Just kill as many as you want and you will be fine, because if you do not do so, you will be the one who is gonna loose life.
After all this terror is over and the individuals are back home, it must be hard to get back to normal after all the harm is done.
The experiences from the war are strong emotional events that is why they will always come back in the form of flashbacks and night mars.
Later on, the ones who killed others might start thinking about the victims family members realizing that the fallen ones were just the same people like themselves, only were not lucky enough to escape the bullets rain, gas etc. and the hell living starts again and again. Will hardly go away, not without a help of psychologists.
I’m sure many soldiers suffer from the disorder, but also know many people who aren’t. I go to a military school, and around a third of the staff has a military background. There are sergeants, majors, lieutenants, and many other high ranked officials at my school. All of them seem to have no affect from being on active duty. They are able to speak freely about the war, but I have seen a student as a major, Major Hernandez, if he has ever killed anyone in a war. He answered with something along the lines of, “Who hasn’t?” He was able to tell an 8th grader that he killed men just like that. There are people who are “strong” enough to come back from the war without being affected by it. They also support the students who are thinking about joining the military. Out of the 52 students in my graduating class, there are already six of them that are legally signed up with different branches of the military. There are people going into the war with little knowledge of what they will experience, so I suppose that only the people who aren’t proud to be soldiers suffer from the disorder. They are the ones that live through their life with remorse, while the rest appear to live their life with pride.
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ReplyDeleteI think most of the soldiers who came back to home from the war would suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I think In the war they experienced the most terrible things in their lives. They had to kill people and they had to see the people, who were dying near them. Those were very cruel and miserable. Actually those are not the things which can normally happen in ordinary life and even those were the things people do not have to experience.
ReplyDeleteThe soldiers would be shocked by those experiences and would mentally hurt. When they came back to the normal life, those memories distress them and limit them from moving forward in their lives.
I suppose a lot of soldiers suffered the post-traumatic stress disorder during WWI. WWI was when technology came into play and most of the advance weapons were invented. A lot of soldiers have never seen or even faced weapons like these before such as tanks, poisonous gas, hand grenades, and flamethrowers along with the improvement of the machine gun which can now mow down multiple victims simultaneously. The psychologist along with counselors weren’t as trained in those days I believe to help victims that witness these horrific scenes. Thus, those soldiers have to live with those memories and events throughout their lives. Most of them end up having mental disorders while many will turn to crime and even suicide. Many of those soldiers were probably young which adds to it. They go into war not knowing what’s ahead. Their innocence are plagued with so much gore and blood that they are forever damaged. The ones that can cope with it become stronger, while those that can’t are lost and haunted by these events.
ReplyDeleteGoing through war isn't even for anybody, especially soldiers who have to go to sleep every night hoping a mortar won't come flying through the roof to waking up every morning patrolling the street hoping not to get fired upon. As "Dude Its Andrew" said counselors weren't trained those days to help soldiers deal with those problems that they've encountered. Today we have many counselors or psychologist that are trained to help soldiers today with their problems. It isn't going to change the fact that the soldier has killed someone in war. Those counselors might tell them to think happy thoughts in order to keep themselves from doing stupid things. How is one suppose to do so if the image of the soldier killing someone replaying over and over in their head. Soldiers that go through shellshock will never be the same. They have to deal with it every day for the rest of their lives, and getting help is useless, they are trying to a band-aid on a wound that's too big.
ReplyDeleteI think most of the soldiers are more or less having the PTSD, even though they have excellent training before they go into the war. Every day, they have to risk the death by the stray bullets or shells, kill or be kill, also they have to face the people, who are fight with them side by side, bruise and die. Whatever in the sight, sound, and feeling, all make them nervous and under pressure. Even though, the war was end, the memory of psychological trauma will always with them. Some of those people, who have a strong will and get the support from the nation or their families, their injured heard are cure and back to normal life. Rest of them, they could not get rid of the shadow of the war, some of them become a psychopath, some of them become alcoholic, addiction to drugs.
ReplyDeletePTSD is common in soldier that fought the war because there are many scene they saw throughout the battlefield that allow keep repeating in their minds and in their dream state that haunted them endlessly without sleep which causes the stress to build up within the soldier that will cause then to breakdown when they return to society. The government never found ways to help these soldier and some where lock up into mental institution to be cared for their entire lives without escaping the nightmare that inflict their minds.
ReplyDeleteI believe every solider would change their mind after going to war, because sometimes, they kill people they don't want, they will have nightmare after they are done with war.But i don't think every solider will suffer from (PTSD) because is just like people who happen to see ghost, not everyone will afraid of what they experience. I have read an article before, during the Vietnam war, the Vietnam solider kill his enemy and cut his head off, after the war is over, this image has always come back to his dream, i remember he end up insane.Because he didn't want to kill him, but he have no choice. I have seen a guy who always stand in front of Starbucks near pine street San Francisco, every time he was there he wears his army uniform with his patch.I believe he is a solider , but he stand there and hope people who walk pass will give him some money, sometimes , i just wonder what have happen to him , what makes him end up begging for money?
ReplyDeleteNot every solider could recover after they join the army,sometimes , it is really hard for them to get back to the normal life after war is over.
I think I cannot image how many soldiers suffer in PTSD. I think although you are a tongue man, you also is going to suffer with this because you might kill someone or saw someone had been kill in the war. When you saw it, you could control your brain, but you couldn't even control the memory. After the war, you go back to your home and you think you can live normally, but you cannot because your memory will come out while you sleep. I heard a story before. When a soldier killed his enemy, he didn't know what he did. He said, "Why I have to kill someone that I don't know and what happen to his family, his mother or his son? What am I? Am I a monster?" When you kill someone in a war, your brain may bring up many questions that you cannot even answer. When you join the war, your future may be destroyed because you don't know how to social. In your brain, there are only guns and shooting because you are taught to kill somebody. Additionally, you are not only destroy someone family, you also destroy your family because you don't how to communicate with your family and friends anymore. In your life, everything was gone and you become alone. What else? You may escape and left your family. After that, you may become a criminal and kill someone. There was a news in the past. It said, "A soldiers become the series killer after he back from the war. The reason that he goes to kill the people is because he cannot stop himself."
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, any career or lifestyle that requires you to dehumanize people in order to carry out your assignments will have severe emotional and mental affects on that person. It seems that the more comfortable an individual becomes in dehumanizing their opponents, the easier it is to move forward in life without the severe conditions that may trouble persons who are still able to relate to their opponents. Any person who cannot feel remorse for taking several persons lives seems to be a disorder in itself. I understand that a soldier’s job is to protect our country and I respect and appreciate them. I just think that in order to carry out such a job successfully, you have to give up a large part of your humaneness.
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