We suck at risking anything for them

We build monuments to honor the lives lost of those who risked all for us. 

We have ceremonies talking about all they gave.

We have politicians making speeches about how much our heroes matter.

When do we finally acknowledge we suck at risking anything for them?

Police officers fight to save victims of crimes and accidents...and each other.

Firefighters fight to save victims of fires and accidents...and each other.

Reserve and National Guard members fight to recover victims and save survivors of natural disasters...and each other. 

Servicemembers risk their lives for strangers...and each other.

The price they pay for all they do for us will never be repaid by us. It haunts them and they forget they did not do their jobs alone, but fight this alone.


Friends do not let friends decide to give up. They fight for them when they cannot fight for themselves.

Friends to not let friends suffer in silence. They speak up for them.

Friends do not walk away because they do not know what to say. They find someone who does.

Friends do not let friends repeat lies. The number of these men and women, who did all they could to save lives of strangers, but not their own, is unknown. 

If you do not know why, then you have not bothered to take the time to research anything.

Stop spreading something that is simply not true. It is the least we can do.

Like feeling the hand of God

While the following article discusses football, the part of the Warrior Ethos reminded me of a conversation I had a few days ago. While discussing the difference between regular military and the citizen soldiers, I seemed to have shocked someone who is considered an expert but never stopped to think about what makes all of us different. It is what is within our souls.

There are many parts within our soul making us into what people see within us. Some of us are giving and caring while others are greedy and selfish. Even the greedy and selfish can take care of their own families but the others tend to look at the needs of others outside their families. Some of us are brave and will stand up to people who appear to be stronger, others will back away. Some of us have it within us to be willing to not only risk our own lives for the sake of others, but kill them. Some do not have it within them to be able to kill to save but will if they are forced to. In other words, they would rather not even think about it.

That is the biggest difference between the citizen soldiers and the firefighters when compared to those who enter into the regular military and the police force.

The people who enter into the military have it within them to not only risk their lives but to take the lives of others, just as the people who enter into the police force. While many will have problems after traumatic events and develop PTSD, the rates are lower than the other group. They have it in the front of their minds that as a warrior, they will have to kill someone at some time and they train for it. The basis is the need to be of service but the awareness of taking a life is active.

The people who enter into the National Guards and fire departments have it within them to risk their lives for the sake of others, but they never think of having to take a life. While they train to do it in the National Guards, this was not something active in their decision to enter into the Guards. The thought is trapped in the back of their minds. The bravery is on equal level to that of a warrior as well as their sense of duty, but what else comes with war is not on an equal level.

When the National Guards and Reservist come home, they are expected to return to their normal lives but they are ill prepared to deal with what came home with them.

This article about football mentions the Warrior Ethos and this applies to the regular military as well as to the citizen soldiers. The difference is that while a football team is putting their bodies on the line being tackled with force, the baseball players put their bodies on the line in a different way, just as the basketball players in yet another way. It is what we all have within us, what we came onto this earth to do and contribute that leads us in different directions.

The Hand of God is always there to guide all of us if we use what He has prepared us to do. He is also there to help us if we were faced with doing what He did not intend for us to have to do.

For those who feel as if God has turned His back on them, please watch PTSD Not God's Judgment. It's on the side bar of this blog under My Videos.

Senior Chaplain Kathie Costos
International Fellowship of Chaplains
Namguardianangel@aol.com
http://www.namguardianangel.org/
http://www.woundedtimes.blogspot.com/
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation." - George Washington

Like feeling the hand of God
Sydney Morning Herald - Sydney,New South Wales,Australia
It is the warrior drive and the warrior ethos that are resurrected in modern football. The team becomes a band of blood brothers, men who assemble together to undertake dangerous exploits under conditions of duress and threat. The experience creates strong bonds of companionship - ones that often last for life, and certainly long after the team has disbanded. Students who were members of teams wrote unselfconsciously, in a similar vein to returned soldiers, about their attachment to their mates.

The warrior ethos, stressing courage, tenacity, and self-sacrifice for the higher good of the collectivity, carries over directly into football with, of course, the one great difference that the greatest sacrifice of all is not asked for. What is involved is "manliness", with its deepest roots, whatever the humanist niceties of modern civilisation, in the war hero. These roots do not seem to wither.

Indeed, I had students who added, without prompting, that if there were a war they and their team-mates would be the first to volunteer, and that, because of their collective morale, they would make an excellent unit. Football shows the young the working of key values in situations of high emotional and physical duress. It shows them what it means to be a hero, and what is shameful.
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Study Identifies Risk Factor for PTSD

Oct. 21, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Study Identifies Risk Factor for PTSD

NORTHAMPTON, Mass. – A study that tracked police cadets from training through induction into the force is the first to report that people who show exaggerated startle responses while being threatened with harm may be more likely to develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Researchers studied 138 police academy cadets, both men and women, who were in training in urban academies in New York and California, and found that cadets who were more easily startled were also more likely to develop symptoms of PTSD once on the force for a year.

PTSD affects about 7.7 million American adults age 18 and older, according to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and is especially likely to occur following interpersonal violence. Given the violent nature of their work, urban police officers are about twice as likely as civilians to develop the disorder. Yet, mere exposure to violence and traumatic stress is not enough to predict who will get PTSD.

“We need to find out who is likely to head down this path, particularly among those who put themselves in harm’s way,” said Nnamdi Pole, Smith College associate professor of psychology and the study’s lead researcher. “If we can help figure out a vulnerability in advance, we can help those at risk to avoid going down that path.”

Pole conducted the study with colleagues at the University of California, San Francisco, and funding from the NIMH. It is slated for publication in the journal Biological Psychiatry.

Long before PTSD was a recognized psychiatric diagnosis, distressed trauma survivors complained about being easily startled, according to Pole. Though the understanding of PTSD has changed in many ways over the years, “exaggerated startle” has remained on the list of core symptoms.

This investigation — part of a new push to study people who are the likeliest candidates for PTSD (prospective) as opposed to people who already have PTSD (retrospective) – indicates exaggerated startle may be more than just a symptom of PTSD but also an early warning system, or risk factor, for PTSD.

To trigger the startle effect, study participants wore headphones that did not provide any sound until an unexpected moment when they gave off a sudden loud noise. In the seconds following that burst of noise, researchers measured participants’ eye blinks, heart rate and sweat responses. Importantly, participants heard several startling sounds while also maintaining an awareness of an approaching threat, which in the study was a mild electric shock.

Researchers gathered the participants together again one year later – a year into their exposure to police-related trauma – and identified two significant findings. Those who had exhibited the strongest startle reactions while anticipating threat of shock and those who were unable to moderate their physiological responses after repeated startles were more likely to exhibit symptoms of PTSD after a year of police work.

Given the findings, said Pole, eventually science may be able to assist those with a propensity for PTSD to either avoid risky careers or perhaps to strengthen the vulnerabilities revealed by the startle testing so that future officers may function optimally in high risk environments.

The research team which, in addition to Pole, includes Thomas C. Neylan, Christian Otte, Clare Henn-Hasse, Thomas J. Metzler and Charles R. Marmar, will continue to gather data throughout the police officers’ first five years of service during which time the officers’ rate of PTSD is expected to rise.

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http://www.smith.edu/newsoffice/releases/NewsOffice08_014.html