Private to General and ends in the pysch ward
Hat tip to Leah Farrell (via Twitter) for this pointer - to a vivid, hard to read personal account of PTSD by an Australian soldier, who joined as a private and became a general. From the sub-title:
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Major General John Cantwell fought in Iraq in 1991 and again in 2006. In 2010 he commanded the Australian troops in Afghanistan. Upon his return, he was in the running to be the Chief of Army – instead, he found himself in a psychiatric ward.
Link:http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/casu...917-2612i.html
We've seen similar references and I do wonder what the impact upon each national society will be of ex-veterans who think this:
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I seethe at the indifference of most Australians to the efforts of our troops overseas.
I know there are some biker SWC members, so:
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Bizarrely, I can ride a motorcycle without having these foolish panic attacks. I have no idea why.
Finally:
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I understand that I am on a long journey of recovery, but I know also that I will complete that journey, someday. I am determined to get better. I will beat this thing.
A book is due out next month:
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Exit Wounds: One Australian's War on Terror by Major General John Cantwell (with Greg Bearup), published by MUP on October 1.
Link to publisher:https://estore.mup.com.au/items/9780522861785 and no trace on Amazon.
"I Am Sorry That It Has Come to This": A Soldier's Last Words
Introductory remarks have been edited slightly:
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Daniel Somers was a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom... Daniel suffered greatly from PTSD and had been diagnosed with traumatic brain injury and several other war-related conditions. On June 10, 2013, Daniel wrote the following letter to his family before taking his life. Daniel was 30 years old. His wife and family have given permission to publish it.
Link:http://gawker.com/i-am-sorry-that-it...ium=socialflow
He refers to twenty-two military suicides daily. I tried to identify a thread on PTSD and suicide, but my search failed, so dropped in here.
More British soldiers commit suicide than die in battle, figures suggest
Pre-broadcast publicity for tomorrow's BBC Panorama on this issue, so some UK papers have picked up the story:
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In 2012 seven serving soldiers were confirmed to have killed themselves, while a further 14 died in suspected suicides but inquests had yet to be held, the Ministry of Defence have confirmed. But as the Government does not record suicides among former soldiers, the number of feared much higher.
An investigation by the BBC's Panorama found at least 29 veterans also took their own lives last year, bringing the total number of suicides to 50 compared with 40 soldiers who died in action in Afghanistan during the same period.
Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...s-suggest.html
Link to BBC summary:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23259865
A piece in the new issue of ‘The New Yorker.’
How much does culture matter for P.T.S.D.? by David J. Morris
There is quite a bit of compare-and-contrast of British and American P.T.S.D. rates in the piece. Excerpts:
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In [
Ben Shephard’s] provocative book, “A War of Nerves: Soldiers and Psychiatrists in the Twentieth Century,” he describes a historical cycle that governs the treatment of war stress: “the problem is at first denied, then exaggerated, then understood, and finally, forgotten.”*
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One of the largest studies done on combat-related P.T.S.D., published in The Lancet at the height of the Iraq War, reported that around four per cent of British veterans had been diagnosed with the disorder. A meta-analysis of studies on American veterans deployed to Iraq found that the rate of P.T.S.D. diagnosis ranges from 1.4 to thirty-one per cent, although the range is typically between ten to seventeen per cent. In a 2010 study published in The British Journal of Psychiatry, Neil Greenberg, of the Academic Centre for Defence Mental Health, at King’s College London, found an incidence rate of 3.4 per cent.
*Shephard’s is not an original insight, but it is worth restating. One of my favorite anthropologists, W.H.R. Rivers, was publicly discussing what we now know as P.T.S.D. almost a century ago.
PTSD for USA up to 30%, Denmark 2%
'Commander Salamander' has added a commentary on the USNI blogsite, within which he comments on PTSD, alongside why service leadership fails to offer leadership:
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Compared with other countries, the United States diagnoses PTSD cases at improbably high rates. Recent PTSD rates in the U.S. have reached as high as 30%, according to the Congressional Budget Office. By contrast, only 2% of Danish soldiers deployed to Afghanistan (and, per capita, the Danes have done as much fighting as anyone) are diagnosed with significant PTSD symptoms, according to a study published in December in Psychological Science. One consequence of high rates of PTSD diagnosis is that the treatment is too often conducted outside a military environment. Soldiers are deprived of what traditionally has been the best medicine: talking to other soldiers.
GBR, DNK, EST, CAN, NLD, AUS all fought relatively caveat free with us in AFG, especially DNK. That is a fair comparison. Either we argue that the average American servicemember is less hardy than your average Dane, that the Danes don’t care about their soldiers, or that there is something wrong with our reporting and classification system. I vote for #3.
Link:http://blog.usni.org/2013/08/19/2013...28USNI+Blog%29
We want your support, not your pity.
A short article 'When the brain is the battlefield' in The Spectator, in a health supplement:http://health.spectator.co.uk/when-t...-armed-forces/
A couple of "take away" points: 4% of all those the UK deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq come back with PTSD; 7% for those in direct combat and 40% with disorders do not seek help.
The UK public expect 90% return with physical or mental health problems.
Yes, this article was the catalyst to re-open this thread and merge smaller ones in (see above Post).
SOF: dealing with PTSD, stress and more for the 'long war'
A long article from Huffington Post, the actual title is: These Elite Troops Spent 15 Years At War. This Program Tries To Prepare Their Minds And Bodies For The Next 15.
Link:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/...b0018f9cb991d0