Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for November 09, 2010

PTSD was also known as Battle Fatigue and Shell Shock.

I didn’t know Alex went to MIP (Mass. Institute of Psychiatry/Psychology)?

Alex is not helping.

It was also known as Da Costa’s Syndrome and soldier’s heart, although it wasn’t properly recognized as a mental-health issue in the nineteenth century.

War always destroys soldiers. It always has. It always will. Yet somehow it has proved impossible to convey that simple message from one generation of generals to the next.

“War is not healthy for children and other living things.”

ok, why is Alex wearing Army gear? HAsn’t she moved some of her clothing there? No way would I want my squeeze to look like a soldier, that just wouldn’t help the PTSD.

@BillThompson Be fair. Nothing was recognized as a “mental health” issue in the 19th Century.

@Bill Tidler Jr. When will they ever learn?

Perhaps the recruits are over sensitive. If you never gutted a deer in the field, I suppose you might be traumatized by a gutted human. Now a hunter or a farmers son would probably tie that soldier together with his shirt and look for a tractor or tank to pull him home.. Hell, the kids today have the right not to dissect a frog. Course their going to react to a human body. Never slaughtered a sheep down on the farm. Don’t know death, Daddy told them old Zeke is living on a farm with balls and kittens. And Grandmother, she moved. . You think that kid might flip when he sees death for the first time? Why did we shelter him?.

Point well taken, Lewreader. Being left unexperienced in any part of life only works if you never have to encounter it.

Good idea, Alex - reverse psychology to help reinforce his own decision to seek professional help.

Anyway, she was probably suggesting directed dreaming.

“@pksampso

“War always destroys soldiers. It always has. It always will. Yet somehow it has proved impossible to convey that simple message from one generation of generals to the next.”

Generals don’t start wars. Soldiers, all the way from Private to General serve at the pleasure of their country. Politicians start wars and send soldiers into harms way. In the United States, historically, it’s always been the politicians and not just from one “party”.

And, PTSD is not universal. There are a portion of the Military who serve professionally and are not significantly impacted by what they do. PTSD has gotten a lot of publicity since Vietnam, when the media portrayed all Veterans as PTSD-ridden bums.

Lewreader, as I understood it from my WWII vet dad, it’s not so much the blood and guts.

It’s seeing the blood and guts of your unit members (or even buddies), or seeing the blood and guts of people that you yourself killed, especially if you find out that they weren’t actually enemy.

You know that you’re killing that deer for food (or for the fun of the killing, for some wanna-bes) and that the other deer aren’t armed and waiting to kill you.

In wars where you’re fighting guerrillas, you’ve also got that mix of interacting with civilians who may not be civilians. Is that woman carrying a baby going to kill you? What about that kid who’s coming up to you asking for candy? WWI and WWII had far fewer guerrillas than Vietnam, Afghanistan, and the War for Halliburton (aka Iraq War). You’ve always got your stress level up and you never can trust anybody except your brothers/sisters-in-arms. And you just saw one of them explode to pieces.

THAT’s PTSD, not just “ewwww, blood.”

There are some professionals in the behavioral health field who do indeed advocate methods of taking control of one’s own dreams, so Alex’s advice may not be so far off as it seems.

Alex, the armchair psychologist.

Alex’s comment is really cute. maybe she’s been reading Victor Frankel. Get on top of your stuff.

Since when is a woman not a professional counsellor?

I think the problem, particularly in a “war” such as this where it is not clear who the enemy is, is stress over accidentally killing an innocent civilian (at least I know that would be the problem for me). Now the solution to this in the past has been to dehumanize the enemy to the point where the term “innocent civilian” has no meaning, but those bleeep liberals keep complaining about this, so it has to be done a lot more quietly and covertly than normal. a simpler solution might be to make soldiers not care who they kill, period. I don’t know if sociopaths can be manufactured, but abusing children from a young age and encouraging them to torture small animals might be a good step.

George Carlin on “PTSD”:

There’s a condition in combat. Most people know about it. It’s when a fighting person’s nervous system has been stressed to it’s absolute peak and maximum. Can’t take anymore input. The nervous system has either (click) snapped or is about to snap. In the first world war, that condition was called shell shock. Simple, honest, direct language. Two syllables, shell shock. Almost sounds like the guns themselves. That was seventy years ago. Then a whole generation went by and the second world war came along and very same combat condition was called battle fatigue. Four syllables now. Takes a little longer to say. Doesn’t seem to hurt as much. Fatigue is a nicer word than shock. Shell shock! Battle fatigue. Then we had the war in Korea, 1950. Madison avenue was riding high by that time, and the very same combat condition was called operational exhaustion. Hey, were up to eight syllables now! And the humanity has been squeezed completely out of the phrase. It’s totally sterile now. Operational exhaustion. Sounds like something that might happen to your car. Then of course, came the war in Viet Nam, which has only been over for about sixteen or seventeen years, and thanks to the lies and deceits surrounding that war, I guess it’s no surprise that the very same condition was called post-traumatic stress disorder. Still eight syllables, but we’ve added a hyphen! And the pain is completely buried under jargon. Post-traumatic stress disorder. I’ll bet you if we’d of still been calling it shell shock, some of those Viet Nam veterans might have gotten the attention they needed at the time. I’ll betcha. I’ll betcha.

Lewreader - I knew plenty of young hunters, farmers, nere-do-wells who were absolutely mind scrambled when they first saw entrails become extrails and venous contents seeping into that white, hot sand and red, hot clay and cold, greasy mud. Background didn’t count for a lot, experience did. That’s why we avoided the fngs like the plague until they had been salt and peppered.

Seeing a brother Marine hit in the upper body area with an RPG round makes one aware of the finality of the occupation called oh three eleven. After that and a few perforations in bad places and some loss of limbs and a few Mr. Charles corpses, most oh three elevens and up became quite calm in the face of loss. Of course the attitude that none of us was going to see the world again helped. That was called acceptance. We accepted that some of us would get to see Mary and some of us were going to not get to see Mary. Boot camp brutality probably had a lot to do with making it easier to accept.

Did it have much to do with having gutted a deer? Or killed a pig? Or strangled a chicken? Or… Nothing at all. In fact, in my three years at that university I can not remember one single time when I reflected on seeing an open abdominal cavity or skull full of grey matter or bone protruding from where an arm was or leg was as a reminder of an Elk just taken. Or bear. Or Muley. Or…

Well, you get it, I am sure.

@potrzebie, I assume Alex is wearing Toggle’s army T-shirt. Not because she didn’t bring enough of her own clothes but because she is proud of him. It’s sexy.

@TimeWeaver, I see that you said it first. Got ahead of me!

@SCAATY__423, “Being left unexperienced in any part of life only works if you never have to encounter it” was the basis of the Buddha’s developing his philosophy of life. He had been carefully protected from seeing any kind of suffering, till one day he went out on his own and saw it all.

@benbrilling, right on! men often turn to the nearest female and pour out their hearts. it’s instinctive.

Know what? They’re right, too! I’ve had that happen to me often. I think it’s because I come across as a sort of calm, listening person who pays attention to what the other person is saying and how they are feeling.

and I never talk about it afterwards to anyone.

I hope Toggle gets the treatment he needs. An incompetent therapist can do a lot of harm.

I have read that group therapy for military people with PTSD has been very helpful because the group members know that the others in the group really do understand.

A lot of bad experiences become more bearable when you discover that you were not the only person in the world who experienced them, that you can talk about them to others and compare notes, that maybe these others have learned something helpful to them that could be helpful to you, and vice versa.

@LewReader- Shooting a deer is a little different than shooting another human being. Most soldiers have to dehumanize the enemy before they can shoot to kill. Then they are expected to toss aside that mindset when they come home. Pretty easy to understand why combat vets can’t always pick up their lives where they left off after the war is over.

It’s too bad that our leaders don’t think about that cost when they send our troops into battle.

Lew, it doesnt matter whether or not someone has gutted a deer, or not. A human, especially if it’s someone you know, is different than a deer, or any animal.

Far be it from me to disagree with George Carlin, but “shell shock” was a different malady. Shell shock was usually the result of prolonged exposure to heavy artillery bombardment; the results were immediate and lingered for varying lengths of time. It was caused by a combination of concussion from nearby explosions, the horror of the effect of those explosions on one’s buddies (the “blood and guts” mentioned above), and the very real prospect of one’s own imminent demise, and one’s helplessness to prevent it. The long-term symptoms were very similar to PTSD, and would probably be classified as such today, but the cause was quite different.

With the advent of mobile warfare in Europe, the occurrence of extended artillery barrages was greatly reduced, at least on the Western Front. Fatigue was in fact the primary cause of most lingering psychological problems suffered by veterans, coupled with “blood and guts” horror and extended periods of high-stress operation. A phrase, “two-thousand yard stare,” was popularized by the work of the artist Tom Lea, who encountered soldiers and marines in the Pacific suffering from the malady. In essence, the conscious mind shut down, and the sufferer began acting on instinct. It was only later, upon the return to “normal” life, that the symptoms occurred.

Today’s fighters’ issues have been eloquently described by afeeny and legacyshooter; I can’t add anything of significance.

Veteran’s Day is Thursday, by the way.

“Whatever floats your boat”. Different people, different boats. Alex may not be wrong, but getting professional help is an idea. It took over a year before my shrinks thought I was ready for “group”. Some folks do fine starting there.

Bad shrinks ARE worse than none- been there, done that.

While current efforts to get folks in right away is better, chronic PTSD, diagnosed and dealt with long after the event or events- is something you learn to deal with, not be rid of. and yes, humans are different than deer, pigs,or livestock– well unless we’re talking politicians.

@Legacyshooter Your posting yesterday really bothered me. Would you go back and read my late night response. Please post everyday so I know you are all right. You write like a professional, one of the best commentators on here. Maybe tomorrow I can beat you on the comment page.

Alex… Do you remember where you hid Toggle’s gun?

More importantly… Do you remember WHY?

jrholden1943 should go to the links provided by Clark Kent. PTSD has only been call that since 1980, it’s been around a very long time.

PTSD wasn’t recognized as a mental health issue in the 20th century – yes, it’s in the DSM IV, but not by the general public, which is where it counts – and we are just now becoming aware that these guys are not faking it, and something is really wrong.

pksampso – or from one generation of soldiers to the next. They all march off so proudly and too many come home to a lifetime of hell.

Hey! What a great bunch of postings. No name calling, no politics (well a little) and lots of good information and discussion of the issues raised in the strip. Also plenty of empathy for other problems and points of view.