Is John McCain Able or is he Cain?

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and the Veteran
by don mikulecky [Subscribe]
Wed May 21, 2008 at 04:56:50 PM PDT
Is it disrespectful of a veteran's service if one wonders about certain behavior patterns and the possibility that they are related to combat experience? I wrote a diary in December of 2007 reviewing the book: Achilles in Vietnam: Combat trauma and the undoing of character by Johnathan Shay, M. D. Ph.D. I think the subject needs to be brought up again relative to certain behavior exhibited by a well known public figure who is also a Vietnam War Veteran and was a POW during that war. The book jacket tells us that Shay is a staff psychiatrist in the Department of Veterans Affairs Outpatient Clinic in Boston. His patients were Vietnam combat veterans with severe, chronic post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Shay examines the devistation of war by comparing the soldiers of Homer's Iliad with Vietnam veterans suffering from PTSD. Allthough the Iliad was written twenty-seven centuries ago it has much to teach about combat trauma, as do the more recent, compelling voices and experiences of Vietnam vets. The historical legacy of war goes back at least that far yet we still tend to wish it away. Denial is of little value to anyone when the issue becomes pertinant to our Nation's future. Let us look at what Shay learned about this horrible effect of combat experience.
(go below for link and more of this)

My reply

McCain must have it
First time

But one Saturday morning, while practicing take-offs in his A-6 Skyraider off the Texas Gulf Coast, the engine suddenly quits. McCain’s plane plunges into Corpus Christi Bay.

Then there was the Forestal. The following is from Against All Odds

On the Forestal John McCain prepares for war.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.): We'd only been in combat for a few days, so the adrenaline and excitement was still quite high.

On July 29, 30-year-old McCain climbs into his A-4e Skyhawk.

After a pre-flight check, his plane gets into take-off position.

But as captured in this real-life video, another plane's rocket ignites and soars across the flight deck. It punctures McCain’s external fuel tank, which erupts into a huge fireball.

Video cameras mounted on the flight deck record the raging inferno surrounding McCain’s plane.

Timberg: McCain is essentially engulfed in it. Very quickly and very cooly he realizes that his only way out is to pop open the cockpit. He climbs out, and there's this lake of fire. He drops into it, rolls and rolls through it.

But just as he turns around to help his fellow pilots escape, the first bomb goes off.

Timberg: Planes are exploding and rockets are exploding. Men are coming out and trying to put the fire out only to have the explosions kill them.

McCain is blown backward by the explosion. Dazed, but conscious, he drags himself to sickbay.

Sen. McCain: And I went up to the sickbay and I walked in and there were a whole lot of people lying around that had been terribly burned, third-degree burns, unrecognizable. And one of them called me over and he said, "Mr. McCain, Mr. So-and-so, he didn't make it, did he?" And I said, "Well yeah, he did I just saw him around in the other room. And he said, "Oh thank God." And he died.

The fire rages for hours. Planes are tossed overboard to prevent even further explosions. A curtain of fire-retardant foam is pumped out onto the deck in a desperate attempt to save the ship.

Down in sickbay, McCain looks on in helpless horror as a video monitor plays the scene.

Joe McCain: Here was this disaster occurring all around him, in which he could see his fellows, his comrades, his pilots, his beloved enlisted men just get cooked, and he's in the middle of this enormous chaos. This disaster was happening to everybody else.

Finally, after 24 hours, the fire is brought under control. The ship is saved, but at great human cost; 134 men lose their lives.

McCain is one of the lucky ones.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...

The POW time is really the only time mentioned when talking about McCain and PTSD. We forget about the other times.

100% of people who have been tortured develop PTSD. No question about that. This I discovered when training to be a Chaplain.

He shows the signs of it as well. I've been working with PTSD vets for over 25 years now, as well as being married to one of them.

Shay's first book got right to the point. I have it on my blog as my favorite book. He got nothing wrong in any of it.

Aside from the fact I think McCain would be very dangerous as a President, he is also the least likely to take care of the veterans and the troops. He has shown no regard for their lives, even early on as you read above. He wants to run as a veteran, but he runs away from what other veterans need. Check his voting record.

by Kathie Costos on Thu May 22, 2008 at 05:55:36 AM PDT
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/5/21/17840/8730/798/519924