To say you cannot see this wound is to admit you just don't know what you're looking at because the evidence is as visible as it gets.
We must heal the wounds of war we cannot see
By Pete Conaty
For too long, America has been in denial about the true cost of war. We have honored our veterans with our lips but we have refused to acknowledge the wounds we don’t see, the deep, painful psychological scars borne by so many of our veterans. Thankfully, we are at last beginning to recognize the depth of this problem. We are beginning to reach out a helping hand to those men and women who have borne the heat of battle and come home forever changed.
In his State of the State speech, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger spoke eloquently and frankly about these wounded warriors and our obligation to make them whole again: “Too often our soldiers bring back the enemy with them in their heads. We are seeing and hearing all about a lot of post-traumatic stress syndrome . . . Those men and women need help.”
California’s concerted effort to help these veterans, however, dates back nearly three years, when the Armed Force Retirees Association, the Vietnam Veterans of America and other veterans groups won Governor Schwarzenegger’s signature on AB 2586, a groundbreaking law designed to give our most traumatized soldiers a chance to confront and overcome the psychological wounds of war. Under this alternative sentencing law, a judge first determines if a defendant is suffering from combat-caused post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
If he is, the judge can steer the defendant into a psychological treatment program rather than jail. Without treatment, many of our fallen heroes would find themselves trapped in an unending cycle of crime and punishment as they struggle with their inner demons.
Eight months ago, the U.S. Supreme Court faced this issue and came down on the side of California’s law in a landmark ruling on the impact of combat stress on veterans. In that case, the high court reduced the death sentence of Korean War veteran George Porter to life in prison. The Florida jury that sentenced Porter to death in a murder case did not know he had fought in some of the bloodiest battles of the war. He came back a “changed and traumatized man,” the high court said. The sentencing jury would likely have spared Porter from the death penalty if it had known of his “horrifying” battlefield experiences, the justices said.
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We must heal the wounds of war we cannot see
Today, because of new science and techniques, there are current workbooks are three to four times more effective than other early life skills workbooks. While most life skills providers are still rooted in the old methods of the 1970s and 80s, we have embraced the new psychological systems that have proven to change faulty thinking errors and overcome self -defeating behaviors.
ReplyDeleteThere is a lot being done now because of all these years of trying to understand what combat does. In the process, we have learned what trauma does to humans. What we see in terms of therapy has been all linked back to the Vietnam veterans coming home and demanding help to heal. All other generations of veterans came home with the war hitching a ride in their soul but no one was really doing much to help them heal. What the Vietnam veterans managed to do is; getting the government to fund research so that all the programs now were made possible, trauma specialists and crisis responder teams showing up whenever others have survived traumatic events and mental health workers taking a new look at what is behind homelessness in this country. Specially trained therapist helping families cope with PTSD in their homes and even after the family has been broken, still heal from their past.
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