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Shuts and Failures

by Michael Maiello

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PTSD: If you don't come home with it, you might be a psychopath

by jollyroger 7/9/2012 - 3:29 pm

Consistent with my social circles, I encounter very few individuals who are thinking about joining the armed forces. Nonetheless, on the rare occasions when I do, Along with advice to keep your head down so it will not get shot off, I ask if they have thought through the creepy things they will be obliged to do as part of their job.

 

When we contemplate that even veterans of "the good war", world war II, struggled with guilt at some of the ramifications of their warrior actions, it is obvious that soldiers in a much more morally ambiguous conflict such as " The war on terror", and it's attendant occupations of civilian populations, almost inevitably do things that a moral human will find repugnant. Thus, if you are not haunted with guilt,you are a fucking psychopath.

It is time to drop the word "disorder" from the diagnosis. Nightmares after war are not a bug; they are a feature of your humanity .

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Few psychiatrists would agree that the veterans who don't get PTSD (a majority) are psychopaths. I'm not a great fan of the military, but that's pretty unfair.

by Aaron Carine 7/9/2012 - 7:20 pm
I take it that you failed to read and/or absorb the linked article.
by jollyroger 7/9/2012 - 9:46 pm (re: Aaron Carine)

  I didn't read the linked article until now, but I don't think the article confirmed the proposition that only psychopaths don't get PTSD.

by Aaron Carine 7/9/2012 - 10:15 pm (re: jollyroger)
Let's leave the restrictive confines of the DSM behind, shall we, and take for our "universe of discourse" the simple proposition that empathy, or, conversely it's absence, is a necessary (if not sufficient ) component of the human(e) state. With empathy, I submit to you, must inevitably come regret/remorse for the infliction of pain on another, if not the immediately confronted foe just dispatched (hey, it was him or me) then the children newly deprived of a father whose pictures tumble out of the wallet through which (ed note:really milking this, are we not?) let us say, the fatal bullet passed? Apply this model to the examples raised in the article. Explain, or explore, if you are of an introspective bent, into what frame you might fit such moral dilemmas so as to sleep untroubled in the future. Parenthetically, it is the absence of empathy that characterizes (and empowers) psychopathy.
by jollyroger 7/9/2012 - 10:38 pm (re: Aaron Carine)

  Well, I can only say again that psychiatrists do not regard the failure to feel guilt over killing in combat as evidence of psychopathy. And some soldiers get through a war without killing or wounding.

by Aaron Carine 7/10/2012 - 7:12 am (re: jollyroger)
What part of " cast ourselves loose of the DSM" is giving you trouble ? By exiting the psychiatric diagnostic handbook, I implicitly conceded your point. Beat some other dead horse.
by jollyroger 7/10/2012 - 1:47 pm (re: Aaron Carine)

Then, of course, came the war in Vietnam, which has only been over for about sixteen or seventeen years. And thanks to the lies and deceit 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 have still been calling it shell shock, some of those Vietnam veterans might have gotten the attention they needed at the time. I'll bet you that.  - George Carlin

by cmaukonen 7/9/2012 - 8:10 pm
I think the.civil war formulation cited, "soldier's heart" sums up the competing equities rather nicely.
by jollyroger 7/9/2012 - 9:50 pm (re: cmaukonen)

From the linked article

Others work for peace so the next generations of soldiers won't have to know the heartache of moral injury.

Our country's leaders, knew the people would have rebelled if another draft had been initiated. Our generation knew the moral injury

So now we have the "ALL VOLUNTEER",  now it excuses our leaders. They can say "We didn't force anyone"  

But they sure can manipulate, the economic conditions that make people seek employment, in the military.
They can also force the soldiers with Stop Gap measures.

The hell they didn't force anyone.

Like religions of old; Sacrifice your children, to the god of fire.

by Resistance 7/10/2012 - 12:35 am
in between my deferments running out and my lottery number coming up 315 or so, my 1a ass was wired up (just like dubya ) for the Air National Guard. I couldn't do it, ultimately and started collecting "See Beautiful Quebec " brochures, but the idea that the National Guard would ever actually deploy was off the table. I recently heard that LBJ considered the draft a less controversial approach than calling up the reserves!
by jollyroger 7/10/2012 - 1:27 am (re: Resistance)

I can't agree, either, with the word "psychopath", though I understand why you used it.  I wrote about this a couple of years ago, using the lengthier quote from Carlin.  While the draft never did anything to ease the suffering, if it was used fairly today, so that every parent's child would have to go, our wars would either shorten or end completely.

by Ramona 7/10/2012 - 6:01 am
I did say might (cf Foxworthy..). It's what headlines writers call "a grabber "
by jollyroger 7/10/2012 - 1:44 pm (re: Ramona)

I understand your larger agenda here, but you might want to reconsider how you getting your point across.  First of all PSTD isn't about having nightmares, although it one of the symptoms.  It is a disorder, because the consequences of not being able to reconcile etc past experiences debilitates the individual from being able to function on a significant level.

Using your logic, the rape victim who is able through counseling to get on with his or her life is somehow the one with the disorder, while the one who years later still cannot sleep at night, is unable to trust anyone, is afraid to turn out the lights at night or leave their residence is in touch with their true humanity.

Many (most?) have at least one event in their life that is traumatic (with those at war it is not only something traumatic happening, but one that goes on for years before it ends).  Some folks are able for whatever reason to come to terms with the experience, find inner peace to some extent, and move on.  Other are haunted, wounded in a way that makes day-to-day life nearly impossible.  Some of those latter folks, through counseling, spirituality, and other paths, can eventually find some of that peace.

But I think just tossing out there that those who are able to come to terms with trauma quickly as psychopaths goes a long way of towards muddying the waters around a complex and highly misunderstood facet of human experience.

by Another Trope 7/10/2012 - 9:37 am
Trope, you are a slave to literalism. Also, I eschew verbosity -YMMV. And, your riposte is inapposite for a discussion the main thrust of which is that the routineduties of an occupying army will involve the commission of brutalities. Did you click the link?
by jollyroger 7/10/2012 - 1:41 pm (re: Another Trope)

I did clink the link.  But regardless of the content of that link, you do need to take responsibility for your own word choice and use of phraseology.  Yes, anyone going into war experiences a trauma, which needs to be dealt with by individual.  The way you put it, if one doesn't fall apart and become unable to move on from that trauma, they are somehow a sociopath. 

I have lived with someone who had PTSD because of the Vietnam War, a good friend for a while from the first Gulf War, and one of my girlfriends from being raped.  To use the term PTSD and then claim not to get hung up on the DSM facet is down right irresponsible.  In fact the more I think about it, the more I think about it, quite frankly, the angrier I get.  My guess is you just wanted a title that was sensational so people would read your blog and the link - how HuffingtonPost of you - but what you did was not only belittle the nature of those suffering from PTSD, but also those who had a internal capacity to deal with traumatic experiences without it crushing their lives.

by Another Trope 7/10/2012 - 2:05 pm (re: jollyroger)
Was it not Shakespeare who said "irresponsibility thy name is jollyroger? " Or was it "oversimplification " I forget. Trope,(not for the first time) lighten up! It's just ephemera...I guess you found "headless body found in topless bar" to be an objectionable headline?
by jollyroger 7/10/2012 - 2:13 pm (re: Another Trope)

It is only by and through the existence of another trope that the jollyroger is able to emerge and differentiate the existence of jollyroger as jollyroger. in other words, without the another trope, the jollyroger would cease to exist.  of course, the inverse is also true, thus creating the symbiotic relationship we know today.

by Another Trope 7/10/2012 - 2:56 pm (re: jollyroger)
Now, that's more like it!
by jollyroger 7/10/2012 - 3:11 pm (re: Another Trope)
Can't you work Heisenberg in somewhere? (or Heidegger, either one will do...)
by jollyroger 7/10/2012 - 3:16 pm (re: jollyroger)

Katherine Heigl ?

by cmaukonen 7/10/2012 - 4:48 pm (re: jollyroger)
Hell yeah!
by jollyroger 7/10/2012 - 6:46 pm (re: cmaukonen)

I would only suggest that this dear girl read the title of this blog before proceeding.

by Anonymous (not verified) 7/10/2012 - 7:09 pm (re: jollyroger)
"I tremble for my country...". Who would NOT be moved to suicide?
by jollyroger 4/8/2013 - 12:41 pm

Years ago while watching the news I saw the Budd Dywer public suicide. It was a big controversy back then, whether it should have been shown on the tv news.

When I saw it I was left gasping for breath. It overwhelmed me.

Now I've seen uncountable graphic murders and atrocities in the movies. One would think I'd have been hardened and inured to that sort of video. Not so, not so.

If I was affected so profoundly to that short 5 second video I can't imagine what it must be like to see it up close and personal, and worse, to be the cause. Over and over and over again.

Surely every soldier on the battlefield is affected to some degree. And yes, if they are not they must have some severe psychological disturbance beforehand.

by ocean-kat 4/8/2013 - 2:10 pm
And yet, Bradley Manning, who exposed the " collateral murder" from which those two children were saved, rots in jail, and Dick Cheney walks free. Talk about karma-in- waiting.
by jollyroger 4/8/2013 - 2:27 pm (re: ocean-kat)

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