Peace "as far as it depends on you"

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
October 31, 2023

"If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone."

That is from Romans 12:18 and that is what the people of Israel and Gaza want to do, were trying to do but others wanted to destroy any sense of peace. The desire to live your life in peace should not cost you your life, but it does.

There have been wars since the beginning of time for many different reasons. It was never about "faith," but people used the idea of faith as fuel to cause people to fight wars. They accused others of trying to take away what they believed fed hatred and that hatred energized vengeance.

The suffering and deaths they caused did not matter as long as those in charge got what they wanted.

Right now it is Israel trying to defend itself after Hamas decided to slaughter citizens in Israel. Bombing buses didn't achieve what they wanted it to. Sending bombs didn't cause as much death and destruction as they hoped. The people of Gaza are paying for what that group did and in return, the people of Israel are paying the price as well. It would be wonderful if both sides decided to invest planning, time, and money, on discovering a way to live side by side but neither side seems to want to give in on what they want out of it. The problem is, that they don't see living in peace as their goal. They want destruction.

And now we've arrived at a deplorable response from far too many blaming the people who were attacked for just trying to live a normal life, including enjoying a music festival. Brutality of Hamas attack seen at Israel morgue on CNN is a reminder of what happened to them.

They are being blamed for the response from their government. It doesn't matter if the people support what their government is doing or not, they are being attacked no matter where they live. What is happening in Gaza is terrible because the people are paying the price for what Hamas did. It doesn't matter if the people support Hamas or not because Hamas hides among the people without the ability to fight them. Hamas is not interested in peace any more than they are interested in taking care of the people living there.

What is the answer? It is the desire to live in peace becoming stronger than anything else. No parent wants their children to suffer, live in fear, or die because of what others do. It is heartbreaking to see the suffering in Israel as well as Gaza, but blaming the people is deplorable. Both sides will be paying the price for the rest of their lives as well as generations to come.

Read the reports of #PTSD caused by all of this and understand that this battle is being fought by people around the world and then understand that everyone is paying the price because PTSD is not limited to the survivors but to their entire families and friends.
 

To witness hatred spread around the world and people being targeted because of their heritage is something we've seen throughout history. All that was achieved by it was more suffering until more people decided to try to stop it. Where are those heroes now? Where are the people with the ability to see clearly what is happening and stop hatred from spreading? 

Israel and Gaza should be preparing for a tsunami of mental health crises

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
October 14, 2023

When responding to your citizens being slaughtered by terrorists is being protested, this world has gone insane.

Last week people in Israel were minding their own business when they were attacked, dragged out of their homes, gunned down at a music festival for peace, and children were decapitated. It has been reported that the terrorists were ordered to target schools to kill as many children as possible.

The people of Gaza did not order it but the terrorists running their country did. Israel responded by targeting places they knew were occupied by them and those places included being among civilians. Many of the innocent people have been killed in the process of killing the terrorists.

The people of Israel want to live in peace. The people of Gaza want to live in peace. Their leaders have to defend their people. So what is the answer when it is not an army against an army? No one knows.

Israeli people cannot allow what happened to them to be forgotten about because it was committed by terrorists. Yet the people of Gaza should not be punished for what the terrorists did. What's the answer?

No one knows what the right answer is unless it is finding a way for both to be able to live in peace but hatred has taken over too many. The terrorists are like well-armed bullies intimidating everyone else to the point where they fear standing up to them.  The terrorists are outnumbered but the citizens do not have the weapons to fight against them. What's the answer?

When you live in constant fear, can you heal from the terror you've already survived? How do you heal when the threat never ends? How do you heal when you've spent your entire life living with it? If you have #PTSD you don't have to wonder too hard because you know what the result can be like. For me, I was only able to heal from the worst that was done to me when the threat died. The only way for the people of Israel and Gaza to begin to heal is to have the threat to their lives die. The problem is hatred does not die. It spreads. It doesn't have to be allowed to spread unchallenged if people refuse to surrender to it. If they find enough hope for peace, they will refuse to give up on achieving it. Who can deliver it when both sides want vengeance?

This is happening in Ukraine too. We cannot forget about what they're going through. What happened here on September 11 only lasted a day but what if it kept on happening? We responded by starting a war in Afghanistan that lasted 20 years and another one in Iraq. Our military was responding with the rules of warfare while they were playing by their own rules. The terrorists did the act but the people of the nations paid the price. It was not military against the military but with terrorists living among the people. Our response did not work. How does the Israeli government think it will work in Gaza?

No matter how it ends, Israel and Gaza should be preparing for a tsunami of mental health crises that will vastly outnumber the number of wounded bodies.

UPDATE

Veteran died after setting himself on fire because his country failed him

This just goes to show that the US is not the only country failing at addressing #PTSD

IDF veteran dies two days after self-immolation due to rejection of PTSD recognition

Times Of Israel
By EMANUEL FABIAN
August 3, 2023

Defense Ministry offers condolences, says 33-year-old Bar Kalaf had mental illness unrelated to military service

Bar Kalaf, who set himself on fire in Netanya, August 1, 2023, and died of his wounds two days later (Courtesy)

A veteran of the Israel Defense Forces who set himself on fire after his application to be recognized as suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was denied died on Thursday, two days after the self-immolation at his home in the coastal city of Netanya.

Bar Kalaf, 33, was taken to Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan on Tuesday with severe burns on his entire body. He was declared dead on Thursday. There was no immediate comment from the hospital.

The Defense Ministry has said Kalaf’s application to be recognized as suffering from PTSD as a result of his military service had been denied.
read the rest of the article here because he is not the only one.

Nearly a Third of Gaza War Veterans Have PTSD

30% of Israeli Soldiers Wounded During 2014 Gaza War Suffer From PTSD
HAARETZ Israel News
Gill Cohen
July 12, 2017

"Almost half of all disabled vets from that war were reservists called up to guard the border rather than regular soldiers who were fighting in Gaza." 

This is the first time Israel's Defense Ministry has published exact figures on the number of soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress due to Operation Protective Edge

An Israeli soldier stands at a staging area after crossing back into Israel from Gaza, July 28, 2014. REUTERS

Of the 481 soldiers the army recognized as disabled veterans due to the 2014 Gaza war, around 30 percent – 143 soldiers – suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, according to Defense Ministry data.

This is the first time the ministry has published exact figures on the number of soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress due to Operation Protective Edge.
Previous studies done by the army’s medical corps put the rate of soldiers who suffered from PTSD after participating in active combat much lower – seven to 20 percent. The rate was 10 to 20 percent in both the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the 1982 Lebanon War, and just seven to 10 percent during the second intifada, the corps said.
read more

Junger Thinks Society to Blame When Troops Come Home?

UPDATE
Jerusalem Post Report on PTSD


There are times when I read a headline and get really hopeful that something new will come out of it, but all too quickly, those hopes are crushed. It just happened when Sebastian Junger was interviewed about a new book and he seemed to want to blame society for the disconnect. Nothing new on that one but then again, no one can really understand what they did not live through. 

"In his book, Mr. Junger marshals history, psychology, anthropology and statistics to make his case. He suggests that in countries with a strong sense of community, such as Israel, incidence of PTSD is low even though that nation exists in a state of near-constant conflict."

Civilians cannot understand veterans but they understand emotional turmoil after surviving something something that could have killed them. Junger had a theory that pretty much summed up what type of research he did for this book.

Hundreds of Israeli soldiers have been diagnosed with PTSD after three infantrymen committed suicide after fighting in Gaza this summer. Baz Ratner/Reuters

Israel Defense Forces' (IDF) Col. Dr. Keren Ginat, who is head of the army's mental health services, told a ministerial oversight committee on Monday that the IDF had invited 1,000 soldiers known to have been wounded in combat or involved in intense firefights in Gaza to come in and talk to bosses about their experiences. Some 70% of the soldiers scored highly on the PTSD checklist and have been referred for additional treatment, Ginat said.

But it isn't just one article on how Israeli Veterans have suffered from PTSD. There are more like this one about cannabis being used to treat PTSD.

According to the study by Dr. Irit Akirav from the Department of Psychology at Haifa University, cannabinoids may relieve the symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), a debilitating disorder that strikes 10 to 30 percent of people who suffer from a traumatic event such as war, a car accident, rape or a terrorist attack.

And this one

Trauma is also very common in women; five out of 10 women will experience a traumatic event at some point during their lifetime. Over the years, hundreds of thousands of Israeli civilians and soldiers, including Holocaust survivors, have developed PTSD.

There are many more articles on this and keep in mind it only took me about 15 minutes to find these since I knew what I was looking for.  After all, none of this is new. 

Here is some more of the interview.

Sebastian Junger’s Take on PTSD
The society troops return to, he says, is more to blame than combat
Wall Street Journal
By RALPH GARDNER JR.
May 22, 2016

One of the tools of journalism, and perhaps life in general, is the ability to create a bond by discovering what you and the person standing in front of you have in common.

However, that wasn’t my modus operandi when I got together with Sebastian Junger, the best-selling author of “The Perfect Storm” who also, along with the late Tim Hetherington, created the Oscar-nominated documentary “Restrepo,” on the Afghanistan War.

We met at The Half King, a pub on far West 23rd Street where Mr. Junger is a co-owner.

Actually, I was more than happy reveling in our differences. Mr. Junger has earned an excellent living chasing risk. I do my best to avoid it.

His new book, “Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging,” which comes out of decades of reporting from war zones, argues counterintuitively that the society American soldiers return to does more to cause post-traumatic stress disorder than combat does.

“PTSD is a disorder of transition,” he said.
read more here

"PTSD is a disorder of transition" Seriously? There is a reason there are support groups for all the different groups of people needing them. They are understood among their peers. It is the same with veterans.  They are understood by other veterans more than anyone else can begin to understand. Military families are understood among other military families.  That is why you see veterans groups with spouses sharing experiences with each other they do not even attempt to share with civilian spouses.  They just don't understand what it is like when they think a huge problem is hubby didn't take out the trash or notice his wife did something differently.  

I don't know what is in the rest of Junger's book and now I don't want to find out.