“In Flanders Fields”

Reading of iconic WWI poem on its 100th anniversary a tribute to Veterans Day
Stars and Stripes
By Carlos Bongioanni
November 11, 2015

CARLISLE, Pa. – One stanza in French, and two in English.

That’s how John Prato, the consul general of Canada, read “In Flanders Fields” during a Veterans Day commemoration that centered on the 100-year anniversary of the iconic World War I poem.

Several dozen attendees, including U.S. and Canadian dignitaries, listened to the reading Tuesday at the Army Heritage and Education Center, adjacent to Carlisle Barracks where the U.S. Army War College is located. The reading followed several brief historical sketches of the poem’s author and of the horrific events he witnessed during WWI.

Lt. Col. John McCrae, a Canadian Army surgeon, wrote the poem in 1915 after allied forces suffered devastating losses from chlorine-gas attacks and after a friend, Lt. Alexis Helmer, was killed on May 2 by an artillery shell.
read more here
A poetic Veterans Day remembrance of the fallen 'In Flanders Fields'

Are National Reporters Really Stupid, Lazy or Just Lying?

Deadly Silence
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
February 14, 2015

I remember Valentines Day and looking at the 4 day old engagement ring on my finger. That was 31 years ago. My husband couldn't wait and asked me to marry him on the 10th. Ever since then what war does to the people we send has been my vocation.

One of the other gifts he gave me over the years was a ruby ring in the shape of a heart. After all these years the prongs had worn down on both rings, so I took them to be fixed. I was told it would be an easy fix and wouldn't take long.

When I went to pick them up, I noticed the ruby had a mark on it. Considering I never take it off and it wasn't exactly clean, after they cleaned it, I knew something was wrong. I asked the jeweler about it and he said the heart was bruised.

As I drove home I thought about how the jeweler said it was a strong stone but it had been abused and was only showing signs of how it was treated. "A bruised heart" kept popping into my head. 

There is a very long history of bruised hearts in this country. As the years go by more and more are showing signs of how they were treated but no one is telling the whole story of how they ended up that way.

Everyday my email box is full of glowing reports about the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention Act being a "good first step" and how it is vital to reducing suicides.

On the local level, reporters take what the national news reporters say as the truth, whole truth and nothing but the truth. They turn around and spread false statements instead of reporting that this bill was stepping backwards to what was already done and failed!
This is a report out of Iowa KWWL News.
Local veterans react to suicide prevention act

Jesse McCunniff has been a soldier in the Iowa National Guard for nearly two decades.

He's been deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt.

He's seen the toll PTSD has taken on his fellow soldiers, including some of who've taken their own lives.

"We've had some in our battalion and some I've served with, real tragic, have ended their own life. It's affected everyone in the unit past or present. It's really a tough time to go through and it lasts for a long time after," said McCunniff.

He says a suicide prevention act signed Thursday is a good first step.
That's also how President Obama characterizes it.

The great national reporters have vanished. The scandal revolving around Brian Williams is just part of the story. For years veterans have been telling a totally different story about Williams but the press wasn't interested in what they had to say about him or what really happened. Stars and Stripes reporters were the first to pay attention and now we are getting a better idea of what they wanted us to hear.

Unfortunately that fine reporting didn't carry onto the truth behind military suicides. Statements about the Clay Hunt bill make it seem as if nothing had been done before the IAVA pushed for the passage of the bill that Senator Colburn called "redundant"

Coburn argued before the Senate late Monday that "almost everything that's in this bill has already been authorized and approved with the $10 billion [Veterans Choice Act] that we sent to the VA."

Actually Colburn was being uncharacteristically kind. This has been going on to the tune of billions a year but suicides went up afterwards and they just repeated the same old bullshit instead of doing something that wasn't simply deadly!

"From that moment, we wanted to find way to honor his memory and not lose any more friends," said Paul Rieckhoff, head of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, an advocacy group Hunt had worked with extensively after his return to the states.

Rieckhoff said Thursday's signing was a "bittersweet" moment in a journey that he described as "incredibly challenging." The group's members held hundreds of events across the country last year, from NASCAR rallies to visits with lawmakers.

"I think we're finally seeing a tone change we needed to see a decade ago," he said, explaining that attitudes about combats veterans and dealing with their mental health finally seem to be changing.

But Stars and Stripes didn't to that report. They simply posted what the Houston Chronicle reported, "Signing of Clay Hunt act ends long, painful journey for mother and father."

What we know is a totally different story. We know about all the other bills that have come out and all the abuses that came with all the "reform" and first steps to reduce suicides. We know these "efforts" started after WWI and began in the proper step down the ladder.

They began within the military when a psychiatrist went to be with the troops and study them. It was carried on into WWII when psychiatric evacuations went up 300% from WWI and then into the Korean War when they tried something new. They sent clinicians to remove soldiers in psychological distress, removed them from combat, treated them and then sent them back to duty. Psychological evacations went down to 3%. Then we knew what they did during Vietnam with their nasty little trick of 12 month deployments so that by the time they knew they had problems, they were already on their magical honeymoon readjustment back to civilian life when everything was brewing but they were too busy "adapting" to notice the war came home with them.

We also know that for OEF and OIF veterans these "first steps" started in the military with the theory of building resilient soldiers with Battlemind and Comprehensive Soldier Fitness in 2009 even though it was already predicted to add to the numbers of dead. Sam Stein just reported what he was told for the Huffington Post. He repeated what he heard in a speech.

U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey laid out the virtues of the newly formed initiative, which he called Comprehensive Soldier Fitness.

"We have been looking very hard at ways to develop coping skills and resilience in soldiers, and we will be coming out in July with a new program called Comprehensive Soldier Fitness," said Casey. "And what we will attempt to do is raise mental fitness to the same level that we now give to physical fitness. Because it is scientifically proven, you can build resilience."

There were a lot of speeches that should have inspired a lot of questions, follow-up and then investigations.

MAY 1, 2008
Defense Department Health Issues
Defense Department officials spoke to reporters and answered questions about mental health programs for personnel exposed to combat and recent calls by the Defense Secretary Gates for soldiers to use the program.

Transcript

WITH 56 NEW POSITIONS ADDED SINCE JANUARY OF 2003 -- SEVEN -- 2007. 30 ARE ON BOARD AND 19 OTHERS ARE SELECTED AND WE ARE HIT RECRUITING FOR THE OTHER SEVEN POSITIONS. THIS IS AN INCREASE OF 34% OVER THE STAFF PRIOR TO JANUARY OF 2007. WE HAVE ALSO DEPLOYED SOME OF OUR MENTAL HEALTH PROVIDERS TO INSTALLATIONS EXPERIENCING INCREASED DEMANDS FOR THOSE SERVICES AS UNITS RETURN FROM DEPLOYMENT TO OIF AND OEF. OUTPATIENT MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES ARE CRITICAL CARE AND A CRITICAL PART OF SUPPORT FOR WARRIORS IN TRANSITION.

MANY WARRIORS ASSIGNED TO WALTER REED'S TRANSITION UNIT RECEIVED TREATMENT FOR PTSD AND BEHAVIORAL HEALTH SYSTEM -- SYMPTOMS ASSOCIATED WITH TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY. AS COMMANDER OF THE WALTER REED HEALTH CARE SYSTEM, I AM PROUD OF THE SOLDIERS WHO PROVIDE ALL ASPECTS OF HEALTH CARE TO ALL THOSE ENTRUSTED TO OUR CARE AND EQUALLY PROUD OF THOSE WHO HAVE DEPLOYED AND RECOGNIZE THE NEED AND SAW OUT BELOW HEALTH TREATMENT AS PART OF THEIR HEALING.

WE WOULD WELCOME ANY QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS.

PEOPLE WILL STILL BE SKEPTICAL

This is the same women denying reports of soldiers in Warrior Transition Units being abused. But then someone else decided to tell the truth and admit it was happening.

Army official admits Bliss Warrior soldiers were mistreated

Col. Chris Toner, the head of the Army's Transitional Command, last week at a congressional hearing in Washington.

Toner replied: "There were challenges at Fort Bliss, beyond a shadow of a doubt." According to reports, some warrior transition unit soldiers were called "slackers" and told to "man-up and move on."

"Was it leadership, was it processes, was it procedures, a lack there of?" O'Rourke inquired.

"All of the above," Toner responded. "We're talking about a period of time from 2009 to 2013. We had multiple issues over that time, everything from cadre members that did not have the right approach to the soldiers and the family members to failure to implement procedures and policies that created some issues in the program down there."

Patricia D. Horoho Commander Walter Reed Health Care System

Major General Horoho’s most recent assignment as Commander of Walter Reed Health Care Systems began 24 May 2007.

In February of 2007, the Washington Post released the report on the Walter Reed scandal.

Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration At Army's Top Medical Facility
By Dana Priest and Anne Hull
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, February 18, 2007

Behind the door of Army Spec. Jeremy Duncan's room, part of the wall is torn and hangs in the air, weighted down with black mold. When the wounded combat engineer stands in his shower and looks up, he can see the bathtub on the floor above through a rotted hole. The entire building, constructed between the world wars, often smells like greasy carry-out. Signs of neglect are everywhere: mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained carpets, cheap mattresses.

This is the world of Building 18, not the kind of place where Duncan expected to recover when he was evacuated to Walter Reed Army Medical Center from Iraq last February with a broken neck and a shredded left ear, nearly dead from blood loss. But the old lodge, just outside the gates of the hospital and five miles up the road from the White House, has housed hundreds of maimed soldiers recuperating from injuries suffered in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The common perception of Walter Reed is of a surgical hospital that shines as the crown jewel of military medicine. But 5 1/2 years of sustained combat have transformed the venerable 113-acre institution into something else entirely -- a holding ground for physically and psychologically damaged outpatients. Almost 700 of them -- the majority soldiers, with some Marines -- have been released from hospital beds but still need treatment or are awaiting bureaucratic decisions before being discharged or returned to active duty.
read more here

That reporting was so good that it earned both reporters a Pulitzer

For a distinguished example of meritorious public service by a newspaper through the use of its journalistic resources which, as well as reporting, may include editorials, cartoons, photographs, graphics and online material, a gold medal.

Awarded to The Washington Post for the work of Dana Priest, Anne Hull and photographer Michel du Cille in exposing mistreatment of wounded veterans at Walter Reed Hospital, evoking a national outcry and producing reforms by federal officials.

We read all these reports but we don't forget what we read last year, or the year before that or decades before that. So now, full circle. Spin, spin and more spin and the reporters let them just get away with it. So where have all the good national reporters gone? Why haven't they been on suicide watch as if these lives actually mattered enough?

WWI Hero Closer to MOH and out of "bureaucratic no-man’s land"

World War I veteran one step from getting Medal of Honor
St. Louis Post Dispatch
By Jesse Bogan
December 15, 2014

A family photo of Sgt. William Shemin during his service in World War I.

WEBSTER GROVES • Twelve years and many phone calls since Elsie Shemin-Roth started on a mission through bureaucratic no-man’s land, her father, a deceased World War I veteran, is one step away from getting the military’s highest decoration.

Under normal circumstances, the Medal of Honor is awarded within five years of an act of heroism. A waiver of time limitations cleared the U.S. Senate Friday as part of a minuscule addition to the massive military spending bill. The vote clears the deck for a final obstacle: approval from President Barack Obama.

“I am just so pleased that we are finally going down the homestretch,” Shemin-Roth, 85, said from her home in Webster Groves.

In 1919, her father was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for “extraordinary heroism,” according to a citation signed by Gen. John J. Pershing. That medal is the Army’s second-highest award.

Decades later, Shemin-Roth heard about a group of Jewish-American World War II vets getting their Army Distinguished Service Cross, Navy Cross and the Air Force Cross citations reviewed for an upgrade due to anti-Semitism. She wanted her father and other World War I vets to have a shot at the Medal of Honor, too.

But first she’d have to get a new law passed. She succeeded with passage of the William Shemin Jewish World War I Veterans Act in 2011.

It allowed a one-year window for cases like her father’s to be resubmitted. There were strict guidelines. Eyewitnesses were needed to verify acts of valor being studied nearly a century later.
read more here

Case 1 of Shell Shock 100 Years Ago

100 years since the first case of shell shock, it’s time to prioritise mental health
It’s 100 years since the first documented case of shell shock today. What progress should we be making a century on?
New Statesman
BY DAN JARVIS PUBLISHED
31 OCTOBER, 2014

Since "Case 1" of shell shock, we still need to make far more progress.

Photo: Getty

One hundred years ago today, on the morning of the 31 October 1914, a 20-year-old private ventured out into firing line of the First World War for the first time.

We know from frontline reports that he and his platoon had just left their trench when they were "found" by the German artillery.

The explosions sparked chaos and confusion as everyone dived for cover. The young soldier was separated from his comrades and became tangled in barbed wire.

As he struggled to free himself, three shells rained down on him, missing him by only a few feet. Witnesses said it was sheer miracle that he survived.

But when the young man was admitted to hospital a few days later, it was clear to the medics that his close brush with death had left a mark on him the like of which they had not seen before.

History hasn’t remembered the young private’s name. Today we know him only as "Case 1" from a seminal report published early in 1915 by a Cambridge professor and army doctor called Dr Charles Myers.

It detailed the first documented cases of what Myers came to describe as "shell shock".

More than 80,000 members of the British Army had been diagnosed with the disorder by the time the First World War came to an end, including the famous war poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen.
read more here

SHOT AT DAWN:WWI 15 Welsh Soldiers Executed for Shell Shock

Shot at dawn: The 15 Welshman executed during the First World War - by their own side
Wales Online
By Rachael Misstear
Oct 05, 2014

A picture of Private William Jones (left) with an unidentified soldier

Private William Jones was one of as one of 306 young British soldiers who received the ultimate punishment for military offences

Private William Jones was probably suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) induced by the horrors of the Great War.

But after deserting the young solider turned himself in – and later found himself blindfolded and put before a firing squad.

The young solider from the Vale of Neath was one of 306 young British soldiers – 15 of them serving in Welsh ranks – who received the ultimate punishment for military offences such as desertion, cowardice, falling asleep or striking an officer. They were all shot at dawn.

In 2006 a blanket pardon was issued for the men who died this way following a petition in the years after the First World War.

Now a new book by Neath author Robert King, who campaigned and supported the petition, portrays the brutality faced by the 15 Welshmen who all faced this terrifying end.

Shot at Dawn looks at how during the First World War the concept of ‘shell shock’ – now known as PTSD – was not known and was not accepted as an excuse for desertion or any of the other offences which resulted in men being shot.

“Jones was a stretcher bearer in France who went missing on June 15, 1917, after taking a wounded soldier to the dressing station.

“The job of a stretcher bearer entailed going out into no-man’s-land collecting wounded and dead soldiers and their body parts and returning them to the dressing station.

“It was a horrendous duty for such a young man and it could have unhinged him, causing him to desert.”
read more here

Combat and PTSD 100 years of research leaves leaders still clueless

100 years after a psychiatrist undertook battlefield mental health we have arrived at a time and place where there has never been more money spent on Combat and PTSD and never more suffering. That is a devastating indictment for all of us. Less serving in the military but suicides are up?

"English Professor at Dickinson College, Wendy Moffat is writing the biography of Doctor Thomas Salmon, a civilian psychiatrist who voluntarily went to the front during WWI to study, diagnose and treat mentally broken soldiers. He's the first U.S. Army psychiatrist and the first to recognize PTSD."

Published on Jul 23, 2014
Thomas W. Salmon was the first American military psychiatrist and a pioneer for mental health research during World War I. In this video, his story is told by Dickinson College Professor of English Wendy Moffat. Moffat is a biographer and social historian of the modern period in America and Europe.

Special thanks to Camille Fife-Salmon and the Salmon family for permission to use photographs.

Outset of the great war, a dreadful rumor arose

History lesson on Combat PTSD
WWI "Shell Shock"

The Shock of War
World War I troops were the first to be diagnosed with shell shock, an injury – by any name – still wreaking havoc
Smithsonian Magazine
By Caroline Alexander
September 2010

In September 1914, at the very outset of the great war, a dreadful rumor arose. It was said that at the Battle of the Marne, east of Paris, soldiers on the front line had been discovered standing at their posts in all the dutiful military postures—but not alive. “Every normal attitude of life was imitated by these dead men,” according to the patriotic serial The Times History of the War, published in 1916. “The illusion was so complete that often the living would speak to the dead before they realized the true state of affairs.” “Asphyxia,” caused by the powerful new high-explosive shells, was the cause for the phenomenon—or so it was claimed. That such an outlandish story could gain credence was not surprising: notwithstanding the massive cannon fire of previous ages, and even automatic weaponry unveiled in the American Civil War, nothing like this thunderous new artillery firepower had been seen before. A battery of mobile 75mm field guns, the pride of the French Army, could, for example, sweep ten acres of terrain, 435 yards deep, in less than 50 seconds; 432,000 shells had been fired in a five-day period of the September engagement on the Marne. The rumor emanating from there reflected the instinctive dread aroused by such monstrous innovation. Surely—it only made sense—such a machine must cause dark, invisible forces to pass through the air and destroy men’s brains.

Shrapnel from mortars, grenades and, above all, artillery projectile bombs, or shells, would account for an estimated 60 percent of the 9.7 million military fatalities of World War I. And, eerily mirroring the mythic premonition of the Marne, it was soon observed that many soldiers arriving at the casualty clearing stations who had been exposed to exploding shells, although clearly damaged, bore no visible wounds. Rather, they appeared to be suffering from a remarkable state of shock caused by blast force. This new type of injury, a British medical report concluded, appeared to be “the result of the actual explosion itself, and not merely of the missiles set in motion by it.” In other words, it appeared that some dark, invisible force had in fact passed through the air and was inflicting novel and peculiar damage to men’s brains.

By 1917, medical officers were instructed to avoid the term “shell shock,” and to designate probable cases as “Not Yet Diagnosed (Nervous).” Processed to a psychiatric unit, the soldier was assessed by a specialist as either “shell shock (wound)” or “shell shock (sick),” the latter diagnosis being given if the soldier had not been close to an explosion. Transferred to a treatment center in Britain or France, the invalided soldier was placed under the care of neurology specialists and recuperated until discharged or returned to the front. Officers might enjoy a final period of convalescence before being disgorged back into the maw of the war or the working world, gaining strength at some smaller, often privately funded treatment center—some quiet, remote place such as Lennel House, in Coldstream, in the Scottish Borders country. read more of PTSD in WWI Here War Neurosis

The Century: America's Time - 1914-1919: Shell Shock
ABC News

Sounds like they should have figured out what to do to help soldiers heal. The truth is, they didn't.

WWII
After WWI they had thought the issues veterans faced had more to do with the "shells" and the compression taking a toll on their brains. By WWII, they knew they were facing something different.

"During the early years of World War II, psychiatric casualties increased by 300% when compared to WWI."

"At one point in the war, the number of men being discharged from the service for psychiatric reasons exceeded the total number of men being newly drafted."

23% of the evacuations were for psychiatric reasons. Readjustments Problems Among Vietnam Veterans, The Etiology of Combat Related Post Traumatic Stress Disorders (1978)

In the same article the Korean War was also discussed. Things changed for the better. They did something right.

Psychiatric evacuations dropped to only 6%. Why? Because clinicians were there when needed. "Clinicians provided immediate onsite treatment to affected individuals always with the expectations the combatant would return to duty as soon as possible. (Also from the above article)

By Vietnam, the number of soldiers diagnosed while deployed dropped. Why? Because they were in and out in a year. What followed was the number of Vietnam veterans needing help to heal.

Everything went up after that. Arrests, drug and alcohol situations made the news but homelessness, suicides, attempted suicides and everything else we see today happened to them, but no one cared enough to notice other than their own families.

Next time you hear some "expert" saying PTSD didn't exist before Vietnam, give them a history lesson.

Soldiers nothing more than lab rats for research project

They used to shoot soldiers for being cowards, now they just push them so they do it themselves. This is what Comprehensive Soldier Fitness was based on.

“They had schoolchildren, each night, write down three positive things about themselves. And then they noticed in a follow-up study that those children felt better about themselves.

But to go from that to saying that we can have a soldier in a foxhole who says positive things about himself and follows the precepts of this program, is going to watch his buddy blown to smithereens and spend four tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan and come out feeling better about himself, there is a shallowness to the assessment that, from my vantage point, I find abhorrent.”

“Recently, the Army released an evaluation of the program, which said, in part, "There is now sound scientific evidence that Comprehensive Soldier Fitness improves the resilience and psychological health of soldiers.” But there is disagreement over that statement in psychiatric circles from doctors and Ph.D.s who say the evaluation is flawed and doesn't prove anything. Meanwhile, the Air Force is in the process of implementing its own version of the program.” (Army Program Aims to Build Troops Mental resilience to Stress, PBS News Hour, Judy Woodruff, December 14, 2011)

Soldiers nothing more than lab rats for research project
De-Tour Combat PTSD Survivors Guide
Kathie Costos
October 1, 2013


Well Suicide Awareness Month is over and so far we have not learned much. At least nothing that is good or hopeful. We do know the answers are out there, just as they have been for the last 40 years but with the way most reporters act, it is almost as if nothing has been learned.

First you need to know that it is not your fault. PTSD goes all the way back to the Old Testament and if you ever read the Psalms of David, you'd see it in his words and his heartbreak. That depth of pain few find the words to express come pouring out of him. It isn't new.

There was a news report released today about WWI soldiers in what was most likely PTSD cases.

The historians' report, commissioned by the government, called for the cases of 650 men shot during the war to be reconsidered.

read more here

Soldiers on motorcycles might be most effective in Afghanistan

Soldiers on motorcycles might be most effective in Afghanistan
By Seth Robson
Stars and Stripes
Published: June 8, 2013

In the past decade the U.S. has spent $45 billion on armored vehicles designed to protect troops against the roadside bombs which cost the enemy next to nothing to build and emplace.

It seems counter-intuitive, but some experts think a safer and more effective way to take on the bad guys might be to ditch the heavy armor in favor of a lighter, faster mode of transport. Many say that in places like Afghanistan, motorcycles would be a cheaper, safer and more effective vehicle for operations than the slow-moving armored personnel carriers preferred by the U.S. military.

It’s not a new concept.

In 1916, Gen. John “Black Jack” Pershing used Harley-Davidson motorcycles with machine guns mounted on sidecars during his hunt for revolutionary Pancho Villa along the border with Mexico.

The War Department fielded 60,000 more Harleys in World Wars I and II, and Kawasaki motorcycles are still used by the Air Force and Marine Corps today for air field surveys, convoy control and reconnaissance.
read more here

WWI veteran's tombstone rededicated in Ocala Florida

WWI veteran's tombstone rededicated
Ocala Star Banner
By Andy Fillmore
Correspondent
Published: Friday, June 7, 2013

A displaced grave marker found last month near Belleview has been identified by family members and reset on its original burial site.

After learning about two intact grave markers, one of which bore the name of his great-grandfather Calvin Thomas, Al McDavid of Orange Lake traveled to the place they were found and checked the information on the marker against a family Bible.

“We are very grateful. Mr. (Calvin) Thomas was my great-grandfather. Tears were nearly shed on the phone when I called my family about the marker,” McDavid, 61, said.

Attempts to solve the mystery of the other marker, for Henry Windley, remain elusive and thus far have involved Veterans Affairs, a search of Army records and a local funeral home and cemetery, without any firm answers at this time.

The intact markers for Thomas, who died in 1918, and Windley, who died in 1964, were found May 20 in a wooded area near some railroad tracks by Avery Daniels, 19, as he walked to his sister’s home, along with at least two other markers that were broken in pieces. Daniels said he and his family reported the find in hopes the markers would be returned to their rightful sites.
read more here

WWII veteran proves PTSD is not new even tough it is news to some

WWII veteran proves PTSD is not new even tough it is news to some
by Kathie Costos
Wounded Times Blog
February 12, 2013

Before the cable news stations started running 24-7 news cycles, before the PCs and Macs started showing up in every home providing the public with a way of reading news from around the world, veterans were coming back home from war with what has been termed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

For some reason the younger generation of reporters have come to the conclusion that this is some kind of new illness no one ever heard of before. They believe they can get a scoop so they go to great lengths to get military brass to sit down for an interview. Unfortunately, they don't seem too interested in doing research on their own to even know what kind of questions to ask or follow up with what they were told with facts. This is why there is so much disinformation out there topped off with thousands of Facebook users mucking up what researchers discovered over the last 40 years.

Combat PTSD is not new. It is not the same as what civilians get from a one time event. It is not even the same as what survivors of abuse get after a lifetime of having their lives threatened. It isn't the same as emergency responders and firefighters get after many times of putting their lives on the line taking care of the citizens in their communities. It is close to the type of PTSD law enforcement officers get for the simple reason of being part of the traumatic event itself. They are not just responding after it happened. They are taking an active role in it, often meeting it with deadly force.

Still even that type of PTSD is not the same as Combat PTSD. For the men and women in the military, they are not just responding with deadly force, they live with the threat of dying on a daily basis for as long as they are deployed. They do not get to go home at the end of the day, back to where it is safe. They can't take a shower and wash the stench of war from their bodies or chill out in their favorite chair watching their favorite mindless TV show. They can't drive down the road to the next position they were ordered to without having to fear an IED blowing them up.

No, none of this is new. It has been called many things. During WWII it was called "shell shock" but the results are the same no matter what it is called by experts. It is a term that went back to WWI. To them it is simply hell.

Shell shocked During World War I, some people saw shell shock as cowardice or malingering, but Charles S. Myers convinced the British military to take it seriously and developed approaches that still guide treatment today.

By Dr. Edgar Jones
June 2012, Vol 43, No. 6
Print version: page 18

By the winter of 1914–15, "shell shock" had become a pressing medical and military problem. Not only did it affect increasing numbers of frontline troops serving in World War I, British Army doctors were struggling to understand and treat the disorder.

The term "shell shock" was coined by the soldiers themselves. Symptoms included fatigue, tremor, confusion, nightmares and impaired sight and hearing. It was often diagnosed when a soldier was unable to function and no obvious cause could be identified. Because many of the symptoms were physical, it bore little overt resemblance to the modern diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Shell shock took the British Army by surprise. In an effort to better understand and treat the condition, the Army appointed Charles S. Myers, a medically trained psychologist, as consulting psychologist to the British Expeditionary Force to offer opinions on cases of shell shock and gather data for a policy to address the burgeoning issue of psychiatric battle casualties.

Myers had been educated at Caius College Cambridge and trained in medicine at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London. Shortly after qualifying as a physician, he took an academic post at Cambridge, running an experimental psychology laboratory. However, at the outbreak of the war, Myers felt compelled to return to clinical practice to assist the war effort. The War Office had turned him down for overseas service because of his age (he was 42), but undeterred, he crossed to France on his own initiative and secured a post at a hospital opened by the Duchess of Westminster in the casino at Le Touquet. Once Myers was there, his research credentials made him a natural choice to study the mysteries of shell shock in France.

The first cases Myers described exhibited a range of perceptual abnormalities, such as loss of or impaired hearing, sight and sensation, along with other common physical symptoms, such as tremor, loss of balance, headache and fatigue. He concluded that these were psychological rather than physical casualties, and believed that the symptoms were overt manifestations of repressed trauma.

Along with William McDougall, another psychologist with a medical background, Myers argued that shell shock could be cured through cognitive and affective reintegration. The shell-shocked soldier, they thought, had attempted to manage a traumatic experience by repressing or splitting off any memory of a traumatic event. Symptoms, such as tremor or contracture, were the product of an unconscious process designed to maintain the dissociation. Myers and McDougall believed a patient could only be cured if his memory were revived and integrated within his consciousness, a process that might require a number of sessions.

While Myers believed that he could treat individual patients, the greater problem was how to manage the mass psychiatric casualties that followed major offensives. Drawing on ideas developed by French military neuropsychiatrists, Myers identified three essentials in the treatment of shell shock: "promptness of action, suitable environment and psychotherapeutic measures," though those measures were often limited to encouragement and reassurance. Myers argued that the military should set up specialist units "as remote from the sounds of warfare as is compatible with the preservation of the ‘atmosphere' of the front." The army took his advice and allowed him to set up four specialist units in December 1916. They were designed to manage acute or mild cases, while chronic and severe cases were referred to base hospitals for more intensive therapy. During 1917, the battles of Arras, Messines and Passchendaele produced a flood of shell-shock cases, overwhelming the four units.

The bulk of the reporting done has been about OEF OIF servicemen and women suffering from PTSD and far too many taking their own lives however none of this is new. Good reporters manage to point that out so that new newer generation of war fighters take comfort in the simple fact while they are unique among the general population, what they are going thru is far from "new" to veterans that fought our battles long ago.

At the age of 87, WWII veteran Glenn Chaney finally received his PTSD claim of service connected disability from the VA. "Nearly 70 years later, Chaney is among the dwindling number of South Carolinians who fought in World War II. And at 87, he may be among the oldest to receive post-traumatic stress disorder benefits for it."

The truth is they were coming back home with the same enemy inside of them as this generation is. The difference is they came home, suffering in silence and isolated from others with the same list of symptoms. They did the same things this generation is. They just didn't get the attention from the press. No one cared. Long after the parades and cheering ended, their battles went on but no one noticed.

It happened to Korean War veterans. It happened to Vietnam veterans and Gulf War veterans and every other combat operation. The information was all out there but few knew about it.

This is why advocates are so frustrated. The research has been done for generations but instead of moving forward from what has already been learned, they repeat the studies and doom generations to suffer the same outcomes.

War to home Christmas letters saved for history, re-tweet

War to home Christmas letters saved for history, re-tweet
by Kathie Costos
Wounded Times Blog
December 25, 2012

At first I thought how lousy it was that so much history is being lost with the technology we have now. Thousands of tweets sent back and forth between the troops and families, pictures and videos replacing hand written accounts of what they are thinking and praying for.

Then I thought about more.

Technology provides us with instant communication across thousands of miles. Could you imagine George Washington sending a tweet crossing the Delaware?

George Washington's Christmas Crossing The weather is cold, but not as cold as it was on this day in 1776, when a raging blizzard tormented the tattered remnants of Washington’s volunteer army.

Back then, there was no one to witness either the misery or the bravery of this heroic band. Today thousands of spectators from all over the world, many dressed in period clothing, are here to watch Rinaldi’s Washington and his men re-enact the event credited with saving the republic.

“These are the times that try men’s souls,” Rinaldi begins, solemnly intoning the words from Thomas Paine’s American Crisis, as Washington did to rally his cold and hungry troops. Parents hush small children; conversation drops to a respectful murmur. “The summer soldier and sunshine patriot, will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country, but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman...”

Think of all the history that would have been lost. How about during WWI when there was a truce between sides. Imagine them on a cell phone later that day taking instant pictures as their wives sent them back pictures of the kids opening their gifts.

The Christmas Truce
On January 1, 1915, the London Times published a letter from a major in the Medical Corps reporting that in his sector the British played a game against the Germans opposite and were beaten 3-2.

Kurt Zehmisch of the 134th Saxons recorded in his diary: 'The English brought a soccer ball from the trenches, and pretty soon a lively game ensued. How marvellously wonderful, yet how strange it was. The English officers felt the same way about it. Thus Christmas, the celebration of Love, managed to bring mortal enemies together as friends for a time.'

The Truce lasted all day; in places it ended that night, but on other sections of the line it held over Boxing Day and in some areas, a few days more. In fact, there parts on the front where the absence of aggressive behaviour was conspicuous well into 1915.

I was reading this when I got onto the computer early this morning and thought about Christmas letters being sent home from war.

From war with love: Christmas letters home span centuries but hit same notes
By Bill Briggs
NBC News contributor

Across three pages — typed on Christmas Eve 1966 from a village in South Vietnam — the soldier’s words to his wife dance seamlessly from a description of singing carols in the jungle to his latest enemy kills to, finally, a vow of eternal affection.

“Last night we had a candle-lighting ceremony ... Gasoline drums welded together end to end with a white Noel on the side. Electric light on top covered by red cellophane ... Reindeer and Santa Claus at front. It was raining,” Army Gen. Sidney B. Berry wrote to his wife. He next reveals how he recently had perched in a helicopter door, firing his rifle at men below: “We all were shooting. And we killed several ...”

“Lovely Anne, I love thee,” Berry closed. “Perhaps the best aspect of this whole period of separation is our increased appreciation and understanding of each other. I love thee, and I will devote the rest of my life to making love to thee.” He signs off: “Thy wearied professional, Sid.”

This time of year, communication from combat lines has long provided a poignant piece of Christmas.

From the Civil War to the Vietnam War, troops ranging from privates to a general struck the same literary chords — no matter the success of their conflict, their era, or the location of their last battle. They often chronicle violence during a moment meant to celebrate peace. They typically express humor, perhaps to put families at ease. And they reveal yearnings to be back with gathered families and friends.

“A lot of people wrote letters to their mothers at Christmas. I guess it’s a time you really start to think about home, really start to think about where you come from,” said Conrad Crane, chief of historical services at the Army Heritage and Education Center.

Some of the letters offered to NBC News were were originally mailed to nieces, parents and wives.
read more here

With technology comes problems. Computers crash, accounts get canceled and files are not saved. There is a lot of history being lost when people don't think of how important all of this is to future generations. Save what you have so that generations from now will learn what we have learned from hand written letters. Print emails, make copies of pictures and save them so that when your children grow up they can learn. We all know we are not getting enough information from the media these days on what is happening in Afghanistan so you are the one to save their voices. Don't just trust Facebook to save all your files because one day they could be just as irrelevant as a lot of sites we used to use.

WWI Memorial closer to happening in DC

House Votes for WWI Memorial in Washington
Dec 13, 2012
Knight Ridder/Tribune
by Ken Newton

Frank Buckles served as a teenage ambulance driver in World War I and lived long enough to see his name become a website.

But the Northwest Missouri native died before namesake legislation could be passed establishing a World War I memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

Twenty-two months after his death, the U.S. House passed the Frank Buckles World War I Memorial Act on Wednesday afternoon. Representatives approved the measure on a voice vote.

In addition to the memorial in the capital, the bill establishes a commission to prepare a centennial observance for the war and reaffirms Kansas City as the site of the national World War I museum.
read more here

This is what they used to do to soldiers with PTSD

Researchers look to WWI soldiers for clues about traumatic brain injuries
By JAY PRICE
The News and Observer
Published: August 5, 2012

DURHAM — Second Lt. Eric Poole was sharp enough to earn a string of promotions and make that rare leap from enlisted man to officer, but his rise through the British Army ranks ended when his superiors ordered him shot.

Pvt. William Alfred Moon was, said a command sergeant major who knew him for two years, “one of the best of soldiers.” They executed him, too.

Pvt. Arthur Wild, as well, had been a solid soldier, one of his officers testified. Wild’s death by firing squad “was instantaneous” wrote the witnessing medical officer.

The trio fought in the French trenches of World War I in conditions almost unimaginably horrific, even by the terrible standards of war. All three were court-martialed for desertion.


They and other executed British soldiers were likely the innocent victims of a scourge that still stalks battlefields nearly a century later: blast-induced traumatic brain injury.

That’s according to the findings of an unusual, multidisciplinary team of Duke University researchers. They include a psychiatrist who served in Afghanistan, a psychologist, a biomedical engineer, and an engineer with a doctorate who is an expert in explaining the precise mechanics of explosions and other forces that can injure humans.

Taking another look

The kind of information the team needs, so many years later, is scarce. What researchers needed in each case was two things: something that offered reasonable clues about the men’s mental health before the trauma, and a report with at least some detail about his exposure to the effects of a blast.

They found it in enough cases to present the results formally at the neurotrauma meeting.

Some of the men, perhaps 10 percent to 15 percent, had poor excuses for deserting or their other behavior. In many of the other cases, there wasn’t enough information in the records to tell much.

But in the cases of about 10 percent of those executed, there appears to be evidence of neurotrauma, said Cameron R. “Dale” Bass, an associate research professor with Duke’s Department of Biomedical Engineering and director of the Injury and Orthopedic Biomechanics Laboratory.
read more here

Medal of Honor for a Black World War I Hero?

Medal of Honor for a Black World War I Hero?
Posted: 7/13/11

Dorian de Wind
Retired U.S. Air Force Officer

"After a 93-year quest fraught with racial discrimination and hampered by military bureaucracy," Johnson's supporters, including Sen. Schumer, believe they have finally built an "ironclad case" to award the Medal of Honor posthumously to Sgt. Henry Johnson, an African-American hero who "fought with uncommon bravery in World War I."

Yesterday, Sgt. 1st Class Leroy Petry became only the second living recipient of the Medal of Honor for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq at a White House ceremony where President Obama said the medal "reflects the gratitude of our entire nation."

And it does. Petry received the Medal of Honor for his heroism during a fire battle in eastern Afghanistan when he, already wounded, retrieved and threw a live grenade away from his fellow Rangers, preventing the serious injury or death of his comrades. But as he released the grenade, it detonated and catastrophically amputated his right hand.

There is absolutely no doubt that Sgt. 1st Class Leroy Petry deserves our nation's highest honor for exemplifying "gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of one's own life above and beyond the call of duty."


However, there are other cases of heroism where -- in my opinion and in the opinion of others -- such gallantry and intrepidity deserving of our nation's highest honor for bravery in combat is yet to be recognized or where such recognition has been very slow in coming.

One such case is Marine Corps Sgt. Rafael Peralta, who in a fire battle in Fallujah, Iraq, in November 2004, while himself mortally wounded, shielded his fellow Marines from serious injury or even death by pulling an enemy-thrown grenade to his body, thereby absorbing the blunt of the blast and giving his life in the process.

Peralta was recommended for the Medal of Honor by the Commandant of the Marine Corps -- a recommendation that was endorsed by the Secretary of the Navy. Instead he received the Navy Cross.
read more here
Medal of Honor for a Black World War I Hero