"Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is no longer a rare diagnosis for combat veterans, but it is almost never discussed publicly. Why is that? Amputees are commonly seen in the media, as are family members and friends of soldiers who have died. It is hard to imagine that mental scars can be as difficult to deal with as physical ones, but they can be. The biggest difference between the two is that physical injuries are more noticeable, often even obvious. PTSD leaves no marks, nothing that signifies trauma to the naked eye."
Guest Columnist: Mental scars of war still fresh 2 years later
Two incidents with IEDs while vet was in Iraq, have taken a toll on her life, her dreams and her psyche.
Elizabeth Ricci
Last update: October 27, 2007 – 4:19 PM
When people talk about the war in Iraq, discussion almost always focuses on topics related to the physical survival of soldiers. As a veteran of this war, I believe more attention needs to be paid to the mental scars soldiers are suffering.
Homemade bombs called IEDs -- improvised explosive devices -- are what have claimed the most lives in Iraq, by far. These devices can range in force from causing mild annoyance to instantaneous death. Early in my deployment, I had my first of several personal encounters with an IED.
go here for the rest
http://www.startribune.com/10240/story/1501645.html
There is more outrage among veterans right now on the web over the speeches people can give in the flag folding ceremony at a military funeral. You would think there would be more outrage over the veterans like Ricci, but there isn't. They come home as they have done from all other wars, carrying the combat with them and the horrors they see. What causes the outrage? A flag folding ceremony for the fallen.
Yesterday I attended one of the protest marches across the country. It was raining in Orlando but still they came to voice their outrage over Bush's delusion in Iraq. No one protested being in Afghanistan, which has all but been forgotten. Swarms of peace marchers walked in front of a small group of pro-war people. Sitting across the street so that I could get a good film of it, as I waited for them to come, it stuck me that both groups were taking a stand for the same reason. Both groups care deeply about the soldiers in Iraq but they cannot come together on the right way to support them.
How can they? Those who have researched how and why the troops ended up in Iraq blame Bush for what he is doing to the military and the people of Iraq. The other side sees it as their duty to support Bush because he is the Commander-in-Chief. They feel it is a betrayal to the men and women in Iraq to go against Bush. Their commonality is the passion they feel for those serving. Both groups feel outrage. Where is the outrage for the wounded coming back? Bush and those who support him have turned those who support just the troops and not him, into the enemy of pro-war groups. Why can't they see that no one is protesting the action taken in Afghanistan?
Still, as I read what outrages people, when apathy does not have them focusing on trivial nonsense, I can't help but wonder who is behind all of this. The bloggers go nuts when someone on the other side says something they can sharpen their teeth on. I'm guilty of that too. Yet I also sharpen my teeth when I see more outrage over trivial than I do over what matters in the lives of the men and women coming back from what we fight over. I care deeply about how they were sent into Iraq and how no one in Washington has done their job while expecting the military to pull off all of it, but I care more about the state of their lives when they come home to live with what they survived.
Go and read the rest of what Ricci wrote and then ask yourself why you can't be so moved as you were yesterday across the country for the sake of the wounded. They need all of us to help them today, not when the occupation is over. The sooner the better, but until it is over, we will have more wounded needing help today. Can't both groups at least come together on this for them?
Kathie Costos
www.Namguardianangel.blogspot.com
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation." - George Washington
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