Choice America Network Online

THE ENEMY FROM WITHIN

Part III of V

PTSD

POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER

 AND THE

 CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY

BY DAVID FRIEDMAN

We all have it. The capacity to hate, the capacity for anger.  It is born out of chaos, and it requires years of experiences with comments made in anger, actions created by hateful reactions, people we care about hurt before we learn to control this enemy.  Some of us will never learn.  Some of us will never be in a position to see what the passion that comes in anger can do to another human being.  

The worst chaos imaginable, WAR, has the power to bring this anger and hate to a place where it can no longer be controlled, no matter how strong we are.  And the strongest of us, when the time for "hating the enemy" is over, in many instances turn our anger on ourselves, for what we have become – for what it was that we allowed to control us.

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a complex health condition that can develop in response to a traumatic experience – a life-threatening or extremely distressing situation that causes a person to feel intense fear, horror or a sense of helplessness.

Soldiers returning from combat in Iraq face a high risk of suffering from PTSD, due to the unprecedented need for vigilance, not only regarding their own safety, but also for the safety of civilians in the midst of non-stop guerilla warfare.

If the soldiers who suffer from PTSD are not given the care they need, if they are not given the time and the calm places in which to heal, they will be driven deeper into their anger, and eventually pushed over the edge. 

A crime against humanity, and sadly, the worst crime of all for the citizens of this country who continue to support war, for it is against those who have made the sacrifice to defend us, who have trusted their leadership to respect them because of the significance of that sacrifice.   They have been, and continue to be, let down and disrespected at every level.

Where is the leadership that understands the significance of what these soldiers have given???  More importantly, when will the people of this country see that the sacrifice hasn't been given, it has been taken, by leaders who believe they deserve complete servitude; that our soldiers give up all humanity when they VOLUNTEER to defend what our constitution stands for. 

There is nothing worse than blind indifference to the pain of those who give all that they have for lies; those who know that they cannot get out of the madness without the help of people who just can't wake up to see the anguish our soldiers are in.  This sense of violation is the final straw that will push these soldiers over the edge.  When they reach out for help and their leaders tell them they are "malingering;" they need to "get back to the front and back into battle to keep the adrenalin flowing," to cure their lack of confidence, or the people they count on will not listen when they try to express their concerns, the people they reach out to are disregarding the needs of fellow human beings. 

CRIMES… we are all complicit until we see war for what it is, and take a stand to stop the madness. 

Where are the leaders?  When will those responsible be held accountable for what they have done, and continue to do, in the name of an illusion? 

These leaders have not been at Ft. Stewart, Georgia.  The 3^rd Infantry Division has a history of ensuring that every soldier is "in the fight" regardless of what the fight does to the soldier.  The popular creed these days seems to be "Mission First.  Take care of the soldiers by completing the mission, at all cost.  We'll get more soldiers.  They're just kids, a dime a dozen.  They're just fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters.  We can throw them away.  Oil matters, egos matter, the illusion of leadership matters, POWER, CONTROL, not letting anyone see the incompetence, all matter more than the humanity of our soldiers."  THIS.. is leadership????? 

At Ft. Stewart, soldiers must go to war, no matter what their humanity says differently. 

One soldier requested compassionate reassignment because a brother, their only sibling, was dying.  The command of Ft. Stewart turned down this request, citing that "105% of all military personnel were needed in Iraq, so no compassionate reassignments were being considered."  It took months of letters, hounding the administration, and this soldier deployed.  Finally, months into the deployment this soldier received word that they had been given their reassignment.  By this time, it was not much longer before they redeployed home.  Why do we have to apply that much pressure to get a "leader" to do the right thing? 

Soldiers on medical profile were treated as "malingering," or came face to face with a physician who was willing to tear up medical profiles and re-write them to show that soldiers who had never received treatment for their conditions had miraculously become deployable. 

One of the soldiers at Ft. Stewart was on medical profile for a condition that caused him to be deaf.  He had his records, and was scheduled to report for treatment and a medical discharge.  One night, this young soldier was wakened by his sergeant barreling into his barracks room ordering him to get up and get his equipment.  He would be deploying with his unit, or he would face 11 years in jail.  In the night, hearing impaired, and young, what is a soldier to do?

A soldier attempted suicide on the morning of deployment.  For months after his return from Iraq, this soldier requested treatment from the mental health counselors.  His commanders refused to listen, saying that he was "malingering."  Rather than give him the help he needed, and asked for, they threatened him, abused him emotionally, and the abuse took its toll.  He was taken to a local hospital, but the command didn't want his story to be told, so they hastily moved him to the Army hospital, refusing entry to his spouse.  He went AWOL, and then returned after his Rear Detachment commander made promises of help. When the mental health counselors informed his commander that this soldier required treatment under their care for at least 5 weeks, the commander ignored the recommendation and sent this soldier to Iraq, back to the same command that disregarded his health to begin with. 

On the night before his deployment, another Ft. Stewart soldier grabbed a bottle of prescription medication and a gun.  He got into his vehicle, drove off post to a highway not far away, pulled over to the side of the road and swallowed the pills in the bottle.  As the pills began to take effect, this soldier, a veteran of the invasion, then got out of his vehicle with his gun and walked along the edge of the highway away from his car.  The medication worked, in more ways than one, and he passed out along the side of the road before he could use the gun. 

This soldier was placed in the Psych unit of the Army hospital, where he was observed throughout the following week.  Doctors in the Psych unit told him that he was "malingering" and threatened with jail time.  He was ordered to deploy, and was sent to Iraq less than two weeks after he had attempted suicide.  Why did he take the pills?  He was scheduled to leave the military that same month, but the Army stop/lossed him, and rather than getting out, he was looking forward to another year and 4 months in combat, never having had his emotional condition addressed. 

There are uncounted cases of these stories on Ft. Stewart.  Doctors and commanders, self-proclaimed leaders who care about their soldiers, give the illusion, but actions present a different perspective.  Soldiers have gone AWOL, 12 from one unit, and have stayed away for so long they were dropped from the rolls.  Where is the accounting?  How many more have suffered that will never be known, because leaders chose to hide the truth, to cover the facts, to distort reality? 

Many in America want to know why more soldiers don't speak out against war, and the atrocities from it, if indeed they exist.  They do exist, and soldiers are speaking.  Their actions are telling us so much more than their words ever could.  But no one can hear because their voices are being muffled by those who claim to lead them. No one can hear because the outcry of these soldiers has been turned off with rhetoric, documents lost and access to the installations cut off for civilians who could make a difference if they knew the truth. 

PTSD manifests itself in so many ways.  Every aspect displays itself in the emotional turmoil that exists within each soldier.  But just as a soldier is an individual, the outward demonstrations of PTSD are as well.  There are many victims when a soldier suffers. 

On a small grassy median just in front of the Ft. Stewart PX complex, was a memorial that stood for 2 months.  One hundred and ninety one small blue pinwheels spun in the breezes during the spring months.  On a poster behind the pinwheels words read, "A memorial to the 191 confirmed cases of child abuse in the 3^rd ID, on Ft. Stewart and Hunter Army Airfield, in the last year."