Will the Army ever stop better than nothing approach?

“You don’t have to act on your emotions,” the instructor said, adding, “Emotions don’t make you weak. You need to develop emotional control.”

This is the part that concerns me the most. It indicates the Army still does not understand PTSD. Controlling their emotions is not the problem. They do this quite well especially when they are faced with someone trying to kill them, bombs waiting to blow them up and never knowing who the enemy really is.

Understanding their emotions is what they should focus on as well as understanding what PTSD is and knowing when they need help. If the Army does not do this the numbers will keep going up on the suicides as well as attempted suicides. Perhaps even more troubling is the consequences of sending them home with PTSD taking control. Just read some of the crimes that have been committed and know that anger is the one emotion they will allow themselves to have. Other people pay the price for this absence of real leadership.

Trying to get the troops to "control their emotions" while trying to prevent PTSD is like telling a dog it can't have the bone. You may restrain him but you have one angry dog on a very short leash.

PTSD causes the mind to build walls around it so that more emotional pain cannot penetrate it. Anger is the only emotion allowed to get out. Anything else causes more pain. This is why they become detached from people they used to care about. This is why they appear to be emotionally dead inside. Will the Army ever understand this?

In times like this I am glad I am not a psychologist or a psychiatrist because they know a lot more about diagnosing and medications to use, but they don't know the men and women they are taking care of because they never really listen. They never really hear the words they say or know what is behind those words.

I've been talking and listening to them long enough to know what is behind what they do and how they feel and that's why I know what it is they need to know to heal. All this mumbo jumbo about toughening anything is a load of crap.

They are tough already. They are trained. They are able, willing and ready to face whatever is asked of them. They endure endless days of waiting for the next bullet to be fired or bomb to blow up. They have more than enough courage to do what is asked of them. Anyone saying anything other than these facts does not know them. They do not know them anymore than they know what is needed to be done. Lives are on the line while the people in charge are at grade school level in understanding any of this.

This isn't about tooting my own horn but tooting the horns of the experts I've trusted all these years. People that have spent the greater part of their lives dedicated to this work. This is tooting the horn of veterans that have pushed themselves to contact me and open up. I learned from the best of them. I also learned from my own husband simply because I cared enough to listen but not just with my brain. I listened with my heart since PTSD is an emotional wound.

Casey: Stress programs to be added to basic

By Susanne M. Schafer - The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday Jul 30, 2009 17:54:59 EDT

COLUMBIA, S.C. — The Army’s top general says basic training will soon include anti-stress programs as part of a broader effort to help soldiers deal with the aftereffects of combat and prevent suicides.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey told reporters during a visit to inspect training Thursday that the new program will begin Oct. 1. It will be part of a soldier’s first week in basic and continue through all levels of Army education for officers and enlisted men and women.

“This is something that will serve the soldiers in whatever environment they are in — at war, at home, and frankly in their personal lives,” Casey said.

The Army has struggled to curb a surge in suicides. Casey says he is frustrated by the numbers and feels the Army hasn’t done enough to give soldiers preventive skills to fight stress, both in combat and when they return home.

“A year or so ago when we began thinking about this, we saw the suicide rates climbing and I remember the futility of sitting there and talking about, what could we have done differently, why didn’t we see this?” Casey said. “I thought we need to focus more on giving soldiers the tools that they need and never got.”

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Stress programs to be added to basic