It's criminal what our government has done to them. This was obviously a complete mental breakdown. He snapped.

Now would you like to fly to Afghanistan and tell the families of the murdered victims, why?

"He snapped", how well has the defense worked in the civilian world?

I'm not going to get drawn into a flame war over words. Go rant at someone else.

Mental breakdown and nervous breakdown aren't even terms used by medical professionals. That alone makes it quite unobvious how he will be diagnosed with a mental or nervous breakdown.

What his lawyer has implied is that because the guy is a victim of truamatic brain injury, and another wound that took part of a foot, the guy can be (obviously?) defended as a victim of some mental illness. The media and water-cooler coverage is angling coverage toward PTSD (although complex PTSD, a.k.a. cPTSD, could also be an avenue of defense though it isn't in the diagnostic manual DSM-IVtr but is proposed for the DSM-V to be released next year.)

While popular belief is that PTSD leaves all veterans that have it violent, the studies that support the idea that PTSD victims are more likely to commit acts violence aren't built around mountains of evidence of vets "going postal", the violence is typically fights and spousal abuse. Burn victims, victims of car accidents who also get PTSD aren't perceived to be more likely to seek revenge by manifest violence. So the understanding of the relationship of PTSD and veteran violence is much more clouded than obvious.

The truth is that despite popular awareness of post traumatic mental illness is rather new to psychology and post-traumatic illnesses are still being sorted out.

Presently all the study results get associated with PTSD because there is no other diagnosis and PTSD has much research money linked to it. If you visit the Veteran's Affairs site on PTSD and veteran violence (http://www.ptsd.va.gov/public/pages/ptsd-criminal-behavior.asp) it suggests there is a consensus that there is a statistical association between violence and PTSD as well as heightened perception of threats even when that threat is unwarranted. There is also a consensus that PTSD sufferers often have a sense that their experience was an injustice, these individuals may disrespect authority (including prevailing norms for behavior) and may view revenge is a way to correct it. Whether all these symptoms belong to a single disorder is really open to question. Newer proposed disorders carved out of PTSD haven't been studied sufficiently to know how violent revenge fits into what may really be a group of discernibly different post-traumatic mental illnesses.

Interestingly, there IS a recently proposed disorder that actually has revenge as THE central feature of the altered thinking of its victims. Known as Post Traumatic Embitterment aka PTED. It is also NOT in the current DSM-IVtr but has been proposed as a chronic and particularly severe form of adjustment disorder for the DSM-V. It was only proposed in the last few years, so it is too soon to know if it better explains how post traumatic mental illness explains violent revenge.

Two or more, gives the soldier the idea that there is no way out.

If there aren't enough new Americans joining, or staying in voluntarily, to keep the war going, then obviously America doesn't believe enough in the war to be in the war.

Even if the guy hadn't been injured, this could easily happy just from the desperation of never being able to get out. That would drive anyone crazy.

It's sad that 65 million republicans voted for Bush, yet they can't get enough of them to join to even keep the war stocked with fresh meat. And yea, I'm using the word that best describes what those in power actually think of us, as we're just meat-suits for their purposes of corporate oil acquisition. It's sick.

you knew who the enemy was and you knew what the end game was. You were always moving forward toward a goal. In Vietnam the goal was to servive for one year. Who knows what 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 tours with no end game has done to these soldiers. I think we have a nation of ticking time bombs. Were going to be seeing the results of this for years.

because it will stigmatize and harm the over one million vets who've served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And worse, that notion will mostly be based on misunderstanding. Bias in public sentiment requires only about 11% of the public to buy into falsehoods before they become deeply engrained in 'common knowledge' and wreak havoc on the lives of unfairly stigmatized people.

PTSD is a popular concept but it's very poorly understood by the general public. I would hasten to say that disorders associated with trauma are only really beginning to be understood. At this time idea of multiple combat tours as a factor leading to the onset of PTSD isn't actually widely accepted. I agree with your premise that ordinary arithmetic argues that more exposure to traumatic episodes would seem likely to cause more PTSD, but psychologists aren't there, yet.

BUT as the definition for PTSD stands, PTSD is associated with onset of symptoms, usually within weeks or months, following a -single- traumatic events. Without a PTSD diagnosis during his stateside rotation, many psychologists would discount the previous tours as a factor. Consequently, that approach would undoubtedly be vigorously tested by the prosecution during his trial.

What is called complex PTSD is suggested to be a consequence of repeated exposure to trauma and long exposure to inescapable risk. Multiple deployments in combat sound just like that. Yet, cPTSD isn't an available diagnoses in the DSM-IVtr so it isn't used as a diagnosis (it is proposed for the DSM-V).

At this point none of us really know what contributed to or caused this sergeant, who by several media reports was a heroic and model soldier to go on a rampage and kill civilians. It's so remarkably unlike reports about him that we want to reach out and find something that makes sense of it. Mental illness seems reasonable to many of us. But we need to be careful not to project that onto every vet that comes home.

There are now over 1 million vets from the Sandlandistan wars, and the number of vets with PTSD being treated by the Veteran's Affairs hospitals is over 200,000.
What seems true, just based on news stories, is that most returning soldiers or vets ARE NOT mental illness time-bombs waiting to commit murder or other violence.

Yes, the statistics suggest PTSD may increase violence. But that violence isn't usually murder. It's often family or spousal abuse. I'm not saying that vets can't or won't commit murders. There almost certainly will be some that will. Maybe this sergeant was one of those.

But doesn't it seem unlikely that we will see anything like one-million new murderers or even 200000 new murders whose violence is a consequence of their military experience?

I'm a Vietnam Vet; I consider myself anti-war and pro-veteran. I really am saddened by statements like yours, because I can imagine the personal and social consequences of such a large number of people as our total Iraq and Afghanistan vets being stigmatized as probable ticking timebombs of dangerous mental illness.

we will have maniacs roaming the streets. I meant candidates for PTSD. As you say though, I know little about it.

Happy now?

We put him on trial and stop blaming the military leaders for him killing kids.

Gotcha.

he had the four tours. What caused those?

He is less responsible that whoever sent him on another tour.

In the Sixties, my friend was deployed three times in Vietnam. He was one of two survivors of his platoon. He later found out that the "strategy" had been for his platoon to "lure" Viet Cong into a waiting area for attack. But his platoon was trapped like the center of a circle as the new American troops surrounded the Viet Cong.

He had a full blown breakdown, watching members of his platoon shot and dying in front of him, one by one. He was sent back to the States for treatment.

Treatment? Not for a nervous breakdown, which he truly had. He was treated in a military hospital for "battle fatigue". Why? Because the thinking at the Pentagon was that if North Vietnam discovered that so many soldiers were suffering nervous breakdowns, then they would continue their campaign. So the myth of battle fatigue was created. Many soldiers were never treated for what was hurting them. And then they were discharged to the civilian life.

My friend thereafter never slept a night without at least one nightmare. Worse than the jungle rot he contracted between his toes. He finally found a therapist about five years ago who's treating him, 40 years later.

Absolutely disgusting how our soldiers are being treated.

Thats where the problem lies, not with the kid but with the system that would do this to him.

Defended Ted Bundy, the Bare Foot Bandit, and has only handled only 3 or 4 military cases!

At least there will be a military lawyer to aide in the defense!

please read my statement here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=73821

Last edited Sat Mar 17, 2012, 11:36 AM - Edit history (1)

(I missed this excellent post earlier. )

Even in the early 70s, these points were vaguely recognized in "fit for duty" assessments. With all the emphasis and advancements in understanding of TBIs, the screening surely should include all of them.

I suspect that now, as then, the "needs of the military" and the great bureaucratic grind lets many impaired personnel slip through the cracks.

One of the medical screening questionaires for pre- and post-deployment assesment asks how many alcoholic beverages per week one drinks. Anything over, IIRC, 3, is classed as excessive and requireing alcohol abuse counseling. Guess how many people claim over that threshold?

Almost none, of course. What do you think anyone answers on more dangerous questions, unless they are in very dire condition?

Military culture discourages complaining.

At that rate, if no one goes back, we wouldn't have enough soldiers. The problem has to do with the fact that we're fighting needless wars, putting our soldiers in harm's way on the whims of some neocon think tank war planners.

to this story than we realize now. Madigan, the hospital attached to the base (Joint Base Lewis McChord) is under investigation for improperly reversing PTSD diagnoses in soldiers to save money. Whether that was a result of higher ups or the chief forensic psychiatrist remains to be seen. The head of Madigan has been suspended while the investigation takes place.

If Bales was evaluated there by that team, it is possible he was passed through "to save having to pay him a disability." That deserves some investigation.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2017692555_madigan08.html

So many tours creates so many psyche disorders

it is AWFUL!!!
War needs to stop!!!