PTSD Netherlands Veterans Survived Combat, But Country Can Kill Them?

Netherlands Euthanasia for PTSD?

Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
November 27, 2018

One of my co-workers walked over to my desk with a very stunned expression. She showed me a printout of an article she saw on FOX. "Belgian officials are investigating whether doctors improperly euthanized a woman with autism, the first criminal investigation in a euthanasia case since the practice was legalized in 2002 in the European nation." 

Three doctors from East Flanders are being investigated on suspicion of having "poisoned" Tine Nys in 2010. The 38-year-old had been diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, a mild form of autism, two months before she died in an apparently legal killing by a doctor that she had asked for.

The article went on with this piece of news. "In the 15 years since doctors were granted the right to legally kill patients, more than 10,000 people have been euthanized. Only one case has previously been referred to prosecutors; that case was later dropped."

I looked up what I could find from journals and official reports.

Actually it seems the Netherlands has a problem with citizens with in any of these health issues.

This is from JAMA research

Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide of Patients with Psychiatric Disorders in the Netherlands 2011–2014

If you have PTSD, they can help you die? Seriously? If you are grieving and depressed they can help you die? If you have Autism?

If their citizens are given up on that easily, then safe bet their veterans are as well.

Smoky Mountain News has this about PTSD and "The Last Post bugle."

“The Last Post bugle call originated in the late 1600s when Britain was campaigning in the Netherlands,” said Ulrich. “Every night they would go to each of the camps, and make sure the outposts were set up so they wouldn’t be attacked. They would have drummers play to signal their movements from camp to camp. At the very last one, ‘The Last Post’ was played, and that meant that it was time to return. It signaled the end of a soldier’s day, but now it commemorates the end of a soldier’s life.”

Ulrich’s collection of relics will also be on display, along with those of others; rounding out the event will be members of the school’s English department, who’ll read poetry and other works, as well as history professor David Dorondo, who’ll be on hand to answer questions about the war.One of them might be on the historical perspective of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD; Ulrich said that although PTSD has been recognized since antiquity, it’s evolved from being called “shell shock” during WWI and “battle fatigue” during WWII.

But it seems the Netherlands has a problem with veterans and PTSD.

Srebrenica massacre army veterans drop damages claim against Dutch state
Dutch News NL
June 22, 2018

A group of army veterans who were suing the Dutch state for compensation for the trauma they suffered after being sent on ‘an impossible mission’ in Srebrenica have dropped their claim, the Telegraaf said on Friday. Some 230 men in 2017 launched their campaign for a ‘symbolic’ €22,000 each – or €1,000 for every year since the Srebrenica massacre took place. The soldiers were serving in the Dutch battalion Dutchbat III protecting the Muslim enclave in 1995 when it was over-run by Bosnian Serbs. They rounded up and massacred some 8,000 men and boys while under the control of Dutch soldiers.

Part of the Srebrenica Genocide Memorial. Photo: Dinos Michail via Depositphotos.com

Trust

Their lawyer Michael Ruperti has now told the Telegraaf that they now had sufficient trust that the defence ministry would give them sufficient support to drop the claim. ‘This has never been about money. This was a lever to make the defence ministry realise that something needs to be done to do justice to this group,’ he said. The veterans claimed the Dutch government could have known the mission was impossible to execute and say the outside world has blamed them for not being able to prevent the massacre. This, they says, has caused them social, emotional and financial damage. The defence ministry currently only compensates soldiers who can prove that they are suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome.

It has bothered me for a long time that I do not seem to find reports out of the Netherlands on veterans with PTSD. Now I know why. Really odd considering that I heard from University of Rotterdam back in 2006.

Which shows they were way ahead of many other countries around the world. So how did they arrive at this heartbreaking decision that mental health patients are so hopeless and helpless that death is fine with them?

PTSD in Mind, Body, Spirit and Blood?

Alterations in blood-based miRNA in veterans affected with combat-related PTSD

Eurekalert.org

September 3, 2017

Individuals affected with PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) demonstrate changes in microRNA (miRNA) molecules associated with gene regulation. A controlled study, involving military personnel on deployment to a combat zone in Afghanistan, provided evidence for the role of blood-based miRNAs as candidate biomarkers for symptoms of PTSD. This may offer an approach towards screening for symptoms of PTSD, and holds promise for understanding other trauma-related psychiatric disorders. Limitations of the study are that this was a small pilot study, and the findings need to be validated, extended and confirmed. First results will be presented at the ECNP conference in Paris.

PTSD is a psychiatric disorder which can manifest following exposure to a traumatic event, such as combat, assault or natural disaster. Among individuals exposed to traumatic events, only a minority of individuals will develop PTSD, while others will show resiliency. Little is known of the mechanisms behind these different responses. The last few years have seen much attention given to whether the modification and expression of genes - epigenetic modifications - might be involved. But there are several practical and ethical challenges in designing a research study on humans undergoing such experiences, meaning that designing relevant study approaches is difficult.

The research group from the Netherlands, worked with just over 1,000 Dutch soldiers and the Dutch Ministry of Defense to study changes in biology in relation to changes in presentations of symptoms of PTSD in soldiers who were deployed to combat zone in Afghanistan. In a longitudinal study they collected blood samples before deployment, as well as 6 months after deployment. Most of the soldiers had been exposed to trauma, and some of the soldiers had developed symptoms of PTSD.

For this pilot study, from the initial group, subgroups were selected of in total of 24 subjects; 8 of the soldiers had developed symptoms of PTSD; 8 had endorsed traumatic experiences but had not developed symptoms of PTSD; and another 8 had not been in serious traumatic circumstances and served as a control group. Using modern sequencing techniques, several types of miRNAs of which the blood levels differed between the groups were identified.

read more here

TWIN HOMELESS VETERANS NEED YOUR HELP NOW BECAUSE THEY ARE 84!

UPDATE From KXTV

Twin homeless veterans Gary and Clifford Koekoek received an outpouring of support after our story detailing their struggle with homelessness aired last week.The twins, 84, have been homeless for the past two years, forced to sleep primarily in their car after their longtime residence was foreclosed on. The property listed under their names was repossessed in 2015, according to information available through Trulia.Since the story aired, donations poured in to a GoFundMe page intended to secure housing for the brothers, and Veterans Affairs was rumoured to be assisting the twins.Tara Ricks, the Chief Public Information Officer for Veterans Affairs of Northern California, confirmed that the VA is working with the brothers, but could not provide specifics due to privacy concerns.The GoFundMe page set-up for the brothers by a friend has far surpassed its original goal of $25,000, hitting approximately $125,000 in 8 days.

Click link for the rest of the story 


UPDATE

Homeless, 84-year-old war veteran twins helped by Veterans Affairs, donations from community

Homeless, 84-year-old war veteran twins say 'it's hell' after home foreclosed
FOX
Travis Fedschu
July 20, 2017

Clifford and Gary Koekoek, 84-year-old twins who've survived living under Nazi occupation and fighting in the jungles of Vietnam, are now in "hell" and sleeping in their car after a bank foreclosed on their California home in October.

Born in the Netherlands, Clifford and Gary grew up under Nazi rule before coming to the U.S., where the brothers worked in Hollywood and then served their new country at war. But the brothers told FOX 40 Sacramento nothing they've lived through compares to their current predicament.

"It's a lot of stress," Clifford said, holding back tears. "I’d rather go back to the war and get shot at, than this crap.”
read more here

Department of Defense Paying for PTSD Service Dogs

Sorry if you thought this story about about the US military paying for PTSD service dogs. After all, that would mean they were leading the way instead of being years behind.

DEFENSE TO PAY FOR PTSD ASSIST DOGS
by Janene Van Jaarsveldt
Posted on Dec 25, 2014

The Ministry of Defense will help pay the cost of service dogs for veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Hulphond Nederland (Service Dog Netherlands) have been assisting veterans for years.

In 2012 they placed the first service dog with a veteran with PTSD. They also participated in a Defense investigation into the use and effects of service dogs on veterans suffering with PTSD.

The assistance dogs can recognize, among other things, the first symptoms of a nightmare and give warning. They can help their owners avoid stressful situations and help them feel safe and secure.

According to the foundation, the dogs help veterans better recover from their trauma.
read more here

‘Hidden Wounds': Battling PTSD With Music

‘Hidden Wounds': Battling PTSD With Music
TIME Light Box
Olivier Laurent
November 11, 2014

“We’re currently losing more veterans to suicide than to enemy action. If you ever confront another veteran and they tell you they never thought about killing themselves, they’re lying.” – Steven Diaz, veteran of the 2003 Iraq War

With millions of veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars returning home with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Dutch writer Arnold van Bruggen and filmmaker Tomas Kaan were looking for a way to raise awareness of the issue among younger people. “People in their twenties and thirties are more likely to have friends, neighbors, cousins, nieces, schoolmates who came back from war or from a military mission,” says van Bruggen. “They are the people who should be more aware of PTSD and what many veterans are going through. They could be the first-response team, so to speak.”

So when they came across “Hidden Wounds,” a song by the Dutch rock band dEUS, “the idea of a documentary immediately popped up,” says van Bruggen. The song tells the true story of an English war veteran, Jimmy Johnson, who, after serving in the British Army in Northern Ireland in the 1970s, saw his marriage disintegrate. He started drinking “and during a panic attack, brought on by a sudden, intense noise, he murdered an innocent man,” says van Bruggen. “He spent years in prison and, shortly after his release, killed again.” Johnson, who pleaded guilty on both counts, has spent his time in prison spearheading a campaign to raise awareness around the issue of PTSD.

“When we started working to transform the story of the song into a documentary, we originally wanted to make a longer documentary on Jimmy Johnson and tear the song apart,” says van Bruggen. “But Johnson is still in a high security jail in Northern England, so there was no way we could film him properly.”

Instead, van Bruggen and Kaan decided to make Johnson’s story more universal. “We started looking for veterans in the Netherlands, Belgium, the U.K. and the United States.” Their goal was to bring together these veterans’ individual stories in a bid to show how commonplace and devastating PTSD had become.
read more here

Marine Embassy Security Guard Bad Behavior

Witnesses: Marine flashed security badge on Obama trip, bragged of being ‘bullet catcher’
Washington Post
By Carol D. Leonnig, Michael Birnbaum and David Nakamura
Published: March 29, 2014

Military officials said they are investigating the conduct of a U.S. Marine who was on assignment for President Obama’s trip to the Netherlands last week, after witnesses said he was talking in detail about his job and passing around his government security badge during a night of drinking at a bar.

The Marine, Korey Nathan Pritchett, was first identified by a Dutch newspaper based on witness accounts and smartphone photos taken during the partying, which happened two nights before Obama arrived at The Hague for a nuclear security summit. The Washington Post confirmed and expanded on that reporting through interviews, social media postings and public records.

The Marine Corps began investigating the alleged behavior after The Post inquired about Pritchett. The Marines did not confirm whether he is the person in the photos.

Pritchett is a security guard at the U.S. Embassy in Monte­negro and reports to the State Department, according to department and military officials. He was on temporary assignment for the Netherlands summit, officials said.
read more here

More police suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder

This report is out of the Netherlands

More police suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder than was previously expected.

The National police report that between 1500 and 2500 co-workers are guessed to suffer from PTSS, because they are referred for treatment, according to the National Police Deputy Chief Constable Gerard Bouman,who told the tv programme Zembla on Thursday.

PTSD is an occupational stress syndrome that has been validated as such at the police corps for two years. Around 4000 officers are already registered as patients, of a total of 60,000 officers, the AD reports. But Bouman thinks that more officers may have the disorder. “There are really too many. I am convinced that there are also cases that, because there was little attention for it, were a dark number and weren’t counted.”

Keep this in mind the next time you read about police officers losing their jobs here in the US because of PTSD. It happens more times than you know.

Cops dealing with PTSD face stigma, lack of resources

SWAT Officer Overcoming the Nightmare of Traumatic Stress

Judge refuses to order West Palm police to reinstate veteran who has PTSD

Pentagon to Send Missiles, 400 Troops to Turkey

Members of NATO cannot take care of the wounded they already have and now they are sending more into Turkey?

Pentagon to Send Missiles, 400 Troops to Turkey
Dec 14, 2012
Associated Press
by Robert Burns

INCIRLIK AIR BASE, Turkey -- The U.S. will send two batteries of Patriot missiles and 400 troops to Turkey as part of a NATO force meant to protect Turkish territory from potential Syrian missile attack, the Pentagon said Friday.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta signed a deployment order en route to Turkey from Afghanistan calling for 400 U.S. soldiers to operate two batteries of Patriots at undisclosed locations in Turkey, Pentagon press secretary George Little told reporters flying with Panetta.

Germany and the Netherlands have already agreed to provide two batteries of the U.S.-built defense systems and send up to 400 German and 360 Dutch troops to man them, bringing the total number of Patriot batteries slated for Turkey to six. The German Parliament is expected to formally agree to the deployment on Friday. NATO foreign ministers endorsed Turkey's request for the Patriots on Nov. 30.
read more here

PTSD Netherlands, After the Battle

After the battle
Radio Netherlands - Netherlands
After the battle
Soldiers dealing with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
by Chris Chambers
25-07-2008
Ex-sergeant marine Peter Bercx's life is improving. He has a stable job and is studying for a qualification in business management. But it hasn't always been like that. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) came close to destroying him. He tells his story of guns, drugs and psychiatrists.

Peter Bercx Peter Bercx is a big man. You wouldn't want to mess with his hundred-kilo frame. In his current job as a conflict trouble-shooter for a bus company you can easily imagine that he can stop a fight just with his stare. Peter was one of the elite in the Dutch army, a marine with commando training and the right to wear the prestigious green beret. His military career began in 1981 and he was sent as part of a peacekeeping force to Cambodia and Bosnia. The mental problems started then and have continued ever since.
Black-outs
His career ended after one of his ‘black-outs'. He went berserk after seeing one of his colleagues as a potential enemy, slashing his own chest and slamming the knife into the barrack door. The next morning he remembered nothing but he was chucked out of the military. Then began the meetings with psychiatrists and the long road towards stability."Now that I control [PTSD] with medication and think about what I'm doing, I avoid certain people and alcohol. It's a way of life, because I'm getting almost close to accepting that I'm sick. When you step on a mine you loose your leg or your arm.
It's harsh, but with a mental illness people don't see that and when you're a marine you're meant to be a tough person and it's very difficult to live up to that." People started to avoid me. They saw a different Peter. Only my closest friends are still present. People didn't understand, which was also my failure because I didn't talk about it. But why should I talk to civilians, why would they have to understand my problems?"
click above to listen

PTSD Netherlands Rewind Technique

On January 31st Human Givens Nederland launched its program of activities in the Netherlands with a 2-day Introduction workshop in Amersfoort, a city not far from Utrecht and Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. This introductory workshop was followed by a third day on Post-Traumatic Stress disorder and the ‘rewind technique’.

The 10 participants who took part in these workshops were from many different walks of life – counselling, coaching and therapy, social work and teaching, from business and studies at university.

With a natural balance between learning about the theoretical principles behind the Human Givens ‘organising idea’ and actual ‘hands-on’ experience in some of the Human Given techniques, the participants felt they had a much better sense about these strange new ‘Human Givens’ that seem to be being imported from the U.K.!

The HG Netherlands team stated: “We are looking forward to many more of those delighted exclamations that came to us during these first workshops. It was a real pleasure for us to watch as each person started realising, for him or herself, just how universal and immediately applicable the Human Givens ideas are in all our different walks of life and living.

We know, without a doubt, that the Human Givens organising idea translates perfectly well into Dutch and the Dutch culture – and into any language for that matter!”

Many thanks and congratulations to all the HG Nederlands team: Jenny Wakelin, Marieke Uiterwijk, Renee van der Vloodt, Robin Temple and Sander van der Velde for making this new enterprise such a success, and good luck for the future of HG Nederlands!
http://www.mindfields.org.uk/blog/?p=187

When I started to do the videos on PTSD, on of the first request to use them came from the Netherlands.

I work as a psychologist at the faculty of psychology of the Erasmus University Rotterdam (The Netherlands).On the internet I stumbeled upon your video about PTSD. I would like to ask your permission to use this video on our website for stricty educational purposes.

Kind regards,Drs Arjen Karel

This was two years ago. They have been ahead of us on PTSD and open to new ways to treat it as well as how to reach people needing help.

Pot use to treat PTSD

PTSD and Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy -VS- Marijuana
by Dr. Phil Leveque

(MOLALLA, Ore.) - According to almost anyone suffering from PTSD, their pharmaceutical therapists, psychotherapists, psychologists and any of thousands of workers in this field admit if truthful that almost nothing tried thus far has worked.

The first written reference to PTSD was in 1900 B.C. by an Egyptian Army physician who called it "hysterical reaction to trauma."

This was reported nearly 4,000 years later by Veith in 1965. It is probable that it occurred in every war since, and it is also probable that the self-medicating treatment was alcohol, which is still used widely today.

The U.S. Civil War produced "soldiers disease" which was most likely PTSD plus opium addiction, and opiates are still used for PTSD today. The Spanish-American War gave us Cuba Libras (rum & lime juice) and World War I gave us Cognac, lots of French wine and probably lots of opiates.
click post title for the rest


One way to find out if it is good at treating PTSD is to go here for a study

Cannabis (drug)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cannabis, also known as marijuana[1] or ganja,[2] is a psychoactive product of the plant Cannabis sativa L. subsp. indica (= C. indica Lam.) and Cannabis sativa L. subsp. sativa. The herbal form of the drug consists of dried mature flowers and subtending leaves of pistillate ("female") plants. The resinous form, known as hashish,[3] consists primarily of glandular trichomes collected from the same plant material.


A dried flowered bud of the Cannabis sativa plant.The major biologically active chemical compound in cannabis is Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol), commonly referred to as THC.

Humans have been consuming cannabis since prehistory,[4] although in the 20th century there was a rise in its use for recreational, religious or spiritual, and medicinal purposes. It is estimated that about four percent of the world's adult population use cannabis annually and 0.6 percent daily.[5] The possession, use, or sale of psychoactive cannabis products became illegal in most parts of the world in the early 20th century. Since then, some countries have intensified the enforcement of cannabis prohibition while others have reduced the priority of enforcement, almost to the point of legalization, as is the case in the Netherlands.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_(drug)

But it looks like the Netherlands has already studied it and use it. It also looks like throughout history, a lot of other nations have used it, including our own.