Art project for veterans

[phil]

The Combat Paper Project turns BDUs into paper which is then used artistically: poetry, drawing, whatever. They're proposing to come to Burning Man
http://www.cieux.com/bm/veteranArt.html
so if you are a veteran and would like to contribute uniform items to be beaten into paper or whether you are a veteran or not and would like to participate (including donating meaningful clothing items of any kind), check the link and subscribe to the Jack Rabbit Speaks for further information. (You can also contact them through their web site.)

The JRS article says for some Iraqi vets, this will be their first return to a desert environment, so counselors are requested to help deal with any stress.

If you want to give something on the playa, here's your chance: help a vet.

[Bounce530]

The same?
http://eplaya.burningman.org/viewtopic.php?t=27641

[Elderberry]

The JRS article says for some Iraqi vets, this will be their first return to a desert environment, so counselors are requested to help deal with any stress.

This is a bit off topic, but counselors? Stress at returning to the desert? Did the WWI and WWII vets have counselors? How about Viet Nam? Geez, back then you just delt with it. I was infantry in Viet Nam, had a bit of trouble sleeping when I got back, but counselors? Is it just me or are people coddled too much today?

JK

[Ugly Dougly]

Will it make the faces go away?

[phil]

The same?
http://eplaya.burningman.org/viewtopic.php?t=27641

Yes!

[phil]

Bummer. It's not going to happen, so I'm taking the page down.

[theCryptofishist]

The JRS article says for some Iraqi vets, this will be their first return to a desert environment, so counselors are requested to help deal with any stress.

This is a bit off topic, but counselors? Stress at returning to the desert? Did the WWI and WWII vets have counselors? How about Viet Nam? Geez, back then you just delt with it. I was infantry in Viet Nam, had a bit of trouble sleeping when I got back, but counselors? Is it just me or are people coddled too much today?

It's just you. Shell shocked British soldiers in The Great War finally had to have a special uniform designed for them, because so many were given white feathers (for cowardice) by women on the street. WWII = Combat fatique. They even had a term post Civil War, soldier's heart. Wouldn't be surprised if vetrans of the pelopenician war had it, too. Here's someone who found it in Ancient Egypt.
You're lucky. But not everyone got it. I wish I could remember the name of the book, but I read one last year that suggested that it is linked to the horror or killing another human being and that as the army has learned to better condition men to kill the ptsd rate has gone up. Speculative, but interesting.
Certainly, like any mental illness, there are predispositions towards it. If you had few or none, it's likely you didn't end up there. How many of your old buddies are you touch with? And how likely are they to tell you something like that, something that they may be deeply ashamed of.

[Elderberry]

The JRS article says for some Iraqi vets, this will be their first return to a desert environment, so counselors are requested to help deal with any stress.

This is a bit off topic, but counselors? Stress at returning to the desert? Did the WWI and WWII vets have counselors? How about Viet Nam? Geez, back then you just delt with it. I was infantry in Viet Nam, had a bit of trouble sleeping when I got back, but counselors? Is it just me or are people coddled too much today?

It's just you. Shell shocked British soldiers in The Great War finally had to have a special uniform designed for them, because so many were given white feathers (for cowardice) by women on the street. WWII = Combat fatique. They even had a term post Civil War, soldier's heart. Wouldn't be surprised if vetrans of the pelopenician war had it, too. Here's someone who found it in Ancient Egypt.
You're lucky. But not everyone got it. I wish I could remember the name of the book, but I read one last year that suggested that it is linked to the horror or killing another human being and that as the army has learned to better condition men to kill the ptsd rate has gone up. Speculative, but interesting.
Certainly, like any mental illness, there are predispositions towards it. If you had few or none, it's likely you didn't end up there. How many of your old buddies are you touch with? And how likely are they to tell you something like that, something that they may be deeply ashamed of.

You may be right. Maybe I'm just becoming jaded by all these 'new diseases' that the drug manufacturers are pushing their cures for on TV that causes me to think many maladies today are at least partially manufactured and nurtured in peoples minds by drug companies just to boost sales.

Sadly (or maybe not) I no longer have contact with anyone I was stationed with in the military.

JK

[phil]

My uncle was in the army in the Pacific, and when he got home he shot the house up at night from his nightmares. :-> No one was hurt, but it scared the crap out of grandmother more than once. My uncle never held a job, and you never knew when he was going to dive for cover. It was funny for the strangers, but not for us. My first wife's father was certified by the VA as mentally disabled from flying bombing missions over Europe; he eventually shot himself to end his misery. I'm sorry to say neither man 'just dealt with it' very well.

One of my Burner friends is totally disabled from PTSD as a result of his days as a helicopter door gunner in Vietnam. He was a lawyer for years after he got back, but he suffered a serious family loss, and it all came crashing in on him, and now he can't work. He's in counseling (very much like the sessions you see in Doonesbury), but it's not curing him, just maintaining him. He's seriously depressed that his wife is now supporting him instead of the other way around.

I have other friends and family members who served in combat in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam, and by far the greater number 'just dealt with it,' and lived more or less normal, happy lives. I'm very happy to coddle returning vets, whether they need it or not.

[**burn**]

A surprising number of our homeless are veterans.
http://www.nchv.org/background.cfm

I am not so sure that 'back then, they just dealt with it' very well.

[Ugly Dougly]

Fortunately, it's not normal or easy to kill other people. Otherwise, we wouldn't be here anymore.

[theCryptofishist]

This is a bit off topic, but counselors? Stress at returning to the desert? Did the WWI and WWII vets have counselors? How about Viet Nam? Geez, back then you just delt with it. I was infantry in Viet Nam, had a bit of trouble sleeping when I got back, but counselors? Is it just me or are people coddled too much today?

It's just you. Shell shocked British soldiers in The Great War finally had to have a special uniform designed for them, because so many were given white feathers (for cowardice) by women on the street. WWII = Combat fatique. They even had a term post Civil War, soldier's heart. Wouldn't be surprised if vetrans of the pelopenician war had it, too. Here's someone who found it in Ancient Egypt.
You're lucky. But not everyone got it. I wish I could remember the name of the book, but I read one last year that suggested that it is linked to the horror or killing another human being and that as the army has learned to better condition men to kill the ptsd rate has gone up. Speculative, but interesting.
Certainly, like any mental illness, there are predispositions towards it. If you had few or none, it's likely you didn't end up there. How many of your old buddies are you touch with? And how likely are they to tell you something like that, something that they may be deeply ashamed of.

You may be right. Maybe I'm just becoming jaded by all these 'new diseases' that the drug manufacturers are pushing their cures for on TV that causes me to think many maladies today are at least partially manufactured and nurtured in peoples minds by drug companies just to boost sales.

Just because ED and RLS are sort of silly diseases, doesn't mean they all are. I'm not even sure if there are any drugs for PTSD, unless you start counting anti-anxieties.
I do think that tv commercials for drugs result in a certain amont of bad medicine being practiced. But this is not the place for that discussion.

[gyre]

You guys are getting into some complex issues.
PTSD has a lot to do with surprize and, I think, a sense of lack of control, the same thing that causes dangerous stress in anyone.
No one knows if some are predisposed.
It has been suggested that shallow people deal with some issues easier.
But there are limits for everyone.
Close personal kills seem to be an issue for some.

In Bosnia, there was a high rate of ptsd among children that were shot.
After about six months, the rate dropped as children expected to be shot.
I leave long term effects to your imagination.

I remember talking to a sniper from the vietnam war for many hours.
I didn't really understand why at the time, but he really needed to talk to someone.
He mentioned not being able to talk about it with his wife.
I know now that talking to someone outside the military was very important to him.

It has happened since then.
Is it such a rare thing to listen?
To want to know?


And yes, ptsd is real.
And you don't know what might trigger it.
Or when.