I was watching a discussion about the steps being taken to help our veterans deal with PTSD. They were talking about programs that have shown some progress in helping people deal with the stressful feelings brought on by their tours.

But it made me think about something. What about the people in the countries where we have gone to war and where these atrocities that have effected our soldiers were happening in the first place. Vets come back here dealing or trying to deal with the nervousness and mental stresses. They either deal with them alone, or turn to organizations to help them deal with their problems. They have access to the VA and still some just can't cope and either drop out of society or even commit suicide. But who is there helping those innocents who live in the places these wars happen. Vietnam, Iraq. What about other places like central Africa where the atrocities are the worst sort of things you can imagine.

How do these people deal with PTSD? They have no VA. They have no groups to attend or medications to help quell the nightmares.

I don't have an answer and I'm not making any judgments except that war ****ing sucks and those who encourage it shouldn't. It should always be the very last resort. Always.

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Truth, Justice and the American way

Very good observations.



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I know of few people who would disagree with that statement.

But it begs the question. The issue people will differ strenuously about is whether the US has reached "the very last resort," and what that phrase really means.

Dante.

Well, Lets take Iraq as an example. Shock and awe. First thing is many of us still don't think we needed to be there in the first place. It was not the last resort. That aside. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 150,000 Iraqis have died since our invasion. How many wounded is unknown but likely much higher. How many suffer from PTSD is also unkown but it has to be thousands.

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Truth, Justice and the American way

Psychological Relief in a Global Crisis

Here's a link that addresses that issue ^.
It uses the Haitian people as an example.

I think the Hmong people, a recent immigrant population, also pretty much exemplify what happens when an entire culture suffers from chronic PTSD.
The first generation of Hmong that arrived here were basically unable to do anything except subsist on welfare. They were severely depressed and withdrawn. Their suicide rates were through the roof. They suffered almost universally from psychosomatic illness.
They certainly did not resemble, in any way, the stereotypical "successful immigrant" pattern established by many other Asian immigrant groups.

Now the Hmong immigrants have been here long enough to have children (and even some grandchildren), who are born American citizens and were never refugees. These children are beginning to assimilate to American culture, although they are still not successful to the extent that other Asian immigrant populations are. They are children raised by parents who have survived atrocities, and who are severely and permanently psychologically f'ed up.
It will probably take several more generations before the Hmong people completely escape the curse of the PTSD they all arrived on our shores with in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

The brutal answer is that we deal with such things as the result of many generations spent building a society in which the individual is seem as warranting such concern, and most African nations have not.

That's very tragic, but I see no realistic way for us to change it, short of a return to colonization, which I tend to favor.

Also, in regards your rather simplistic and slogannistic rejection of war, you'd do well to remember that the freedom, wealth, and moralistic backdrop requirred to consider questions of caring for damaged veterans are all largely the fruits of war, directly and indirectly, and have been preserved by other wars. This is the Human Condition.

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“Quod scripsi, scripsi"

"Sometimes, the source of the beautiful dawning light that drives back the darkness, is your house burning"

Two things, I didn't say no war. I said war as a last resort. Secondly, Just to challenge your notion of PTSD in African nations. How about this idea. What if there is less of a problem with PTSD in these problematic societies because the are ingrained with the notion that there is no help coming and in that psychologically the are more able to compartmentalize serious trauma better then a more "Civilized" society.


Let that one soak in a minute.

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Truth, Justice and the American way

Also, there are many other conditions besides war that lead to PTSD in entire populations. Extreme poverty, for one, which often leads to systematic violence, child and teen prostitution, high infant and child mortality, etc. This can be seen in many developing nations not currently at war.

Great Post Mikeyy, I to have thought about the same thing several times over the years. Yet my mind wanders and till the next time it is lost. With only two or five active brain cells it happens.
Right now I have to many browers open doing several things, but if I remember in a while I will try to search out for an answer to your/mine question, cause I hope other countries we fought or who are at war with neighbors do help their own.
But my multitasking also gets me lost, so...
All I know about the NVA when they took over is that they set up camps to re-educate the southern population.

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"There are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation... One is by sword... The other is by debt."

John Adams 1826