Most of the emails I receive break my heart. Some of the emails I receive piss me off. The ones that tick me off the most, contain rants by some jerks who would rather attack the media when they finally do report on important stories, instead of understanding what the reporter actually said.
When we read numbers like "1 in 5" returning from Iraq have psychological wounds, that should be an eye opener. These bullshit artists will turn that into a personal attack instead of noticing the magnitude of the problems we need to deal with. The rate of PTSD is one out of three, but we need to clearly understand what that rate means and where it comes from. It is for every three exposed to a traumatic event, one of them will walk away with the event eating away at them. We've had an inkling all through this about the numbers of PTSD wounded this will create for many years.
At first, using the data from Vietnam, it appeared to be heading at over 100,000 but that was in the first two years of the occupation of Iraq. Knowing that many would not present symptom right away, they were included in that figure. The following year we were fearing 300,000, then 400,000 and now we are looking at 800,000.
The figure includes the rate of kill to wound rate at 1-7. For every soldier killed, seven survive. This is a great accomplishment for the military doctors, however it is also producing seriously wounded who will need to have their bodies and minds taken care of for the rest of their lives.
Vietnam had 1.6 million in what were considered combat zones. Actually there were more exposed to the violence but it gave a good starting point since we are close to that figure with Iraq and Afghanistan already.
When we read numbers like "1 in 5" returning from Iraq have psychological wounds, that should be an eye opener. These bullshit artists will turn that into a personal attack instead of noticing the magnitude of the problems we need to deal with. The rate of PTSD is one out of three, but we need to clearly understand what that rate means and where it comes from. It is for every three exposed to a traumatic event, one of them will walk away with the event eating away at them. We've had an inkling all through this about the numbers of PTSD wounded this will create for many years.
At first, using the data from Vietnam, it appeared to be heading at over 100,000 but that was in the first two years of the occupation of Iraq. Knowing that many would not present symptom right away, they were included in that figure. The following year we were fearing 300,000, then 400,000 and now we are looking at 800,000.
The figure includes the rate of kill to wound rate at 1-7. For every soldier killed, seven survive. This is a great accomplishment for the military doctors, however it is also producing seriously wounded who will need to have their bodies and minds taken care of for the rest of their lives.
Vietnam had 1.6 million in what were considered combat zones. Actually there were more exposed to the violence but it gave a good starting point since we are close to that figure with Iraq and Afghanistan already.
IN UNIFORM AND IN COUNTRY...
Vietnam Vets: 9.7% of their generation.
9,087,000 military personnel served on active duty during the Vietnam Era (Aug. 5, 1964-May 7, 1975).
8,744,000 GIs were on active duty during the war (Aug 5, 1964 - March 28, 1973).
3,403,100 (Including 514,300 offshore) personnel served in the Southeast Asia Theater (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, flight crews based in Thailand, and sailors in adjacent South China Sea waters).
2,594,000 personnel served within the borders of South Vietnam (Jan. 1, 1965 - March 28, 1973)
Another 50,000 men served in Vietnam between 1960 and 1964.
Of the 2.6 million, between 1 - 1.6 million (40 - 60%) either fought in combat, provided close support or were at least fairly regularly exposed to enemy attack.
7,484 women (6,250 or 83.5% were nurses) served in Vietnam.
Peak troop strength in Vietnam: 543,482 (April 30, 1968)
http://history-world.org/vietnam_war_statistics.htm
Yet by 1978 the DAV study found that 500,000 had already been diagnosed with PTSD. They knew the numbers would rise for at least the next 10 years. The at "least part" was very telling. Last year a report came out an additional 148,000 Vietnam vets sought help for PTSD in an 18 month period. We need to calculate the numbers of deployed in both occupations, considering they are rotated in and out of both and Afghanistan has seen an increase in attacks against the occupying forces. Two studies put the number of suicides between 150,000 and 200,000. The homeless rate was over 300,000. This does not even include those who ended up in jail also suffering from the price of combat. I don't know if we will ever know how many of them were there because of PTSD or because they were just like the rest of us where some commit crimes and some do not. I doubt there have been many studies done on how many had PTSD.
The Vietnam vets were considered collateral damage as just another price of the war and they were then ignored. They fought to have their wounds tended to. They fought for equal attention as with generations before them, but they also demanded more for all of them. No one thought about the families these wounded would also affect.
The carnage of war weighs heavily on the soul and we need to address this instead of ignoring it. No matter how many times the fools attempt to minimize the damage done to those we send, it will not make the problem disappear. It will only make the problems worse as the veterans begin to experience progressively worsening symptoms. Their families will be needed to be added to the grim figures of damaged by war.
What we are now seeing is just the beginning of many more years to come and we have a choice to make. Do we disregard the reports and the studies, attack the reporters for bringing this all into the public's knowledge or do we really do something about it? Do we tend to the needs of all wounded now or do we cast them aside and hope they die early? Do we wait until more have committed suicide because of PTSD or do we go into emergency mode to make sure fewer of them actually succeed at ending their suffering?
What do we owe them? It is not about supporting the occupations or being against them. It is about the price paid by other humans we send into abnormal situations.
If you want some really grim numbers go to this site.http://www.brookings.edu/fp/saban/iraq/index.pdf
Kathie Costos
Namguardianangel@aol.com
http://www.namguardianangel.org/
http://www.namguardianangel.blogspot.com/
http://www.woundedtimes.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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