Women in Combat, More Prone to PTSD

This is pretty sad. We're just starting to see the effects on women in combat...

Women in Combat, More Prone to PTSD
21 March 2005


If you read any ancient history, you know that centuries ago it was commonplace for women to fight side by side with men on the battlefield. This is not the stuff of mythology. It is fact.

Today, in Iraq women are on the front lines again fighting side by side with their male counterparts.

On a mission just south of Baghdad over the winter, a young soldier jumped into the gunner's turret of an armored Humvee and took control of the menacing .50-caliber machine gun. She was 19 years old, weighed barely 100 pounds and had a blond ponytail hanging out from under her Kevlar helmet.

"This is what is different about this war," Lt. Col. Richard Rael, commander of the 515th Corps Support Battalion, said of the scene at the time. "Women are fighting it. Women under my command have confirmed kills. These little wisps of things are stronger than anyone could ever imagine and taking on more than most Americans could ever know."

However, now we are starting see the effects women fighting on the front lines and studies are indicating that more women are suffering from more debilitating forms of PTSD. According to Paula Schnurr, a lead researcher for a 6 million dollar study on the effects of PTSD in women, “data indicate that female military personnel are far more likely than their male counterparts to have been exposed to some kind of trauma or multiple traumas before joining the military or being deployed in combat. That may include physical assault, sexual abuse or rape.”

MORE - http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/default.asp?view=plink&id=590

one extended stressor like stalking or war. So to say these women started the process of PTSD before they put on the Uniform is crap. To get PTSD you need type I trauma and then type II trauma. Multiple traumas are more likely if the stressor is exactly the same... and war is exactly the place to suffer such multiple psychological assaults.

Getting hit again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again in the same place is what causes PTSD. Please tell me you are not going to try and not blame war for the whole thing? Trust me.. a few years of the same stress will do it. All you need is a good deal of fear and repeated 'assaults' on the same place in you psychi. Then you have PTSD.

God I hope the military is not going to try to get out of it again?

it appears they are studying this. PTSD does not just happen to Vet's. That common knowledge at this point.

I think among the points they are making is that women who join the military might do so to get out of bad situations they are in, and now this compounds it.

It's not crap that being raped or sexually abused could exacerbate PTSD for a woman. It's crap to say it is not significant.

they have to jump right into the 'childhood' theory for the first type of trauma.. is really annoying (the first half of the diagnosis of the PTSD is then not the army's fault).

I think we can all imagine that war would cause multiple traumatic events over a series of hours, days, months, years. So it just boils my blood when I hear the (life before is partly to blame) theory out there right at the get go!!

You know the door is just open on PTSD and soldiers effected by it in this war - and yes I agree many people should be given psychological exams to keep the previously traumatized (and the psychopaths) out of the army but somehow I doubt that will be in the minds of on campus recruiters or their bosses.

Do you understand?... this is just like with the gulf war syndrome. There is always and element of denial in any discussion of illness and war, and as legitimate as this article may be..it annoys me to no end.

Have you honestly every heard of them mention women and PTSD and the war before this article? I heard them talk about the super drugs they had for the treatment on the groud... this is the first I've heard on Women & PTSD.

mainly because we live in a world where women's struggles don't matter to the medical community or to legislators or to most men.

It isn't the first I've heard of it, unfortunately, because I am a woman with PTSD, and I have never been in "real combat." Mine is 'domestic combat related' as I call it. And no, most judges, lawyers, doctors and the media don't give a damn if a woman gets PTSD from violence, rape, etc. It is a very well hidden disorder affecting millions of women.

I have posted about it on DU in the past. Sorry you missed those threads.

Personally, I am not offended that they might link an exacerbation of PTSD symptoms to prior PTSD or trauma in females. The same thing can happen to men, actually. ANY mention of PTSD is welcome to me. Nobody wants to talk about it.

One thing I know. If I had cancer or heart disease or endometriosis, I might get some empathy. PTSD? I hear, "Fix yourself." "Get over it." "What's wrong with you?"

But I will always be pissed off when I see PTSD reframed as something that couldn't have started and ended on the battlefield. You and I know that it is the repetition of trauma that is the problem. So do they. So I will always be annoyed when they introduce the topic of PTSD in an arena of repeated trauma and immediately talk about it originating somewhere else.

They are the army for god's sake. They know all about good information vs. bad.

it's too bad the disorder is so misunderstood. And I, too, would be suspicious of dismissing female combat-related PTSD by claiming it was "pre-existing" in some way.

This can also happen to men, so why don't they just say that "any soldier with previous traumatic experiences might have a more severe case of PTSD than the average person?"

Instead, if they try to dismiss caring for women by saying the condition "isn't the military's problem" I will be mighty pissed.

I understand what you're saying. I wish we could be a more compassionate, knowledgeable society. Every. Day.

Studies from the Justice Department's research section have shown that children who are raised in dangerous, inner city neighborhoods or in homes where abuse is the norm show the same indicators of PTSD as combat veterans.

That women who experience these types of trauma pre-enlisting may be more prone to PTSD. No one is saying it doesn't exist or that's it's not the fault of serving in a war.

PTSD is very common for people who DO NOT serve as well. I've had it.

Why have we never heard about it before with women. Well that was very clear in the article, because they never served on the frontline before.

Did you read before you ranted?

know what comes after the 4th paragraph. But I was not pleased that the opening information on PTSD (and women & War) lays blame at somebody else's door.

Hits me the wrong way. War is more than capable of creating repeated traumas itself. So the opening shot in the whole Women,War & PTSD issue talks about of much of the blame belongs somewhere else? A previous life? Again I say that the military of very, very "aware" of how information travels.

And yes - they lost me at 'previous trauma': another word for 'externalities'. Trust me the machine that is our leader... is very aware of when it creates the notion of externalities (global warming what?) and when they collapses externalities into internalities they have responsibility/ownership of for (Africans can no longer buy cheap knock off aids drugs from India - millions will die). It annoys me to know end.

Perhaps the article reversed itself in paragraph 5 and took us into the history of PTSD and its abusive treatment by the army & society. Not my problem if it did.

OMG! One time rape victims can have PTSD. Going through one crisis, like a hurricane disaster can cause PTSD. Ongoing child abuse can cause PTSD. And no, it's not "getting hit in the same place." It may not even be physical abuse, it could be emotional.

It is not new for women to get diagnoses of PTSD.

http://www.suite101.com/welcome.cfm/6651

Welcome to Women's Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Although PTSD is experienced by both men and women, and the symptoms are the same there are current statistics which make it clear that there are twice as many women with the disorder as men out of an estimated 14% of the population currently diagnosed with PTSD.

One need only to consider that men commit 90% of violent crimes in this society to understand that women can and do have PTSD.

the frying pan or vice versa.
Damn join the army to get away from physical abuse and then ....
Also more women wounded than in any other war. Can't get frontline pay because, but in Iraq everywhere is the frontline.

Military women say they face sex harassment

By PAMELA MARTINEAU and STEVE WIEGAND
Sacramento Bee
March 09, 2005

- Gina W. went to Iraq, and came back with a different kind of war story. Her battlefields were in the barracks and the mess hall. The weapons were innuendoes and threats. And the enemy? Her own boss.

"When you go there, you have to be prepared for war," she says. "And then you have to be worried about being raped by your own people."

The former Army specialist is one of dozens of military women who say they faced some kind of sexual harassment while in the combat theater in Afghanistan or Iraq.

Though publicity about sexual misconduct in the war zone has focused on rape, female soldiers said unwelcome advances, demeaning comments - and a feeling that being alone around male comrades in arms meant being unsafe - were far greater concerns.

"I think every female (soldier in Iraq) has been sexually harassed," said Sgt. Yolanda Medina of Long Beach, who is doing her second tour there with the California National Guard's 2668th Transportation Company.

The exact number of U.S. military women who have been assaulted or harassed is probably somewhere between Medina's "every female" and the number reported by the Department of Defense.

Defense Department numbers show that from August 2002 through October 2004, 118 cases of sexual assault on military personnel were reported in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan. But the Miles Foundation, a nonprofit organization that helps victims of military domestic violence and sexual assault, reports that it was contacted by 258 military assault victims in the combat theater during that same time span. That number rose to 307 through mid-February, according to the foundation.

A Pentagon official said the military would release more up-to-date numbers sometime this month. Yet military officials acknowledge their numbers don't reflect the true situation because many women are reluctant to report an assault. One study by the Department of Veterans Affairs found nearly 75 percent of military women who said they had been assaulted did not tell their commanding officer.

No statistics are kept on cases of sexual harassment that fall short of physical assault, and none reflect what many women interviewed by The Sacramento Bee described as a bawdy combat zone environment that made them feel like second-class soldiers:

http://www.knoxstudio.com/shns/story.cfm?pk=IRAQ-HARASSMENT-03-09-05&cat=AN

by the men they serve with.

But don't forget some people think that it's crap that these things could affect a women and their PTSD level!

GEEZ!

Ouch.

Help for Veterans with PTSD and Their Families
http://www.ncptsd.org/facts/veterans/fs_help_for_vets.html

Traumatic Stress in Female Veterans
http://www.ncptsd.org/facts/veterans/fs_women_vets.html

Military Veterans PTSD Reference Manual
http://www.ptsdmanual.com/

National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
http://www.ncptsd.org/

Military Woman.org
http://www.militarywoman.org/
http://www.militarywoman.org/issues.htm

Center for Women Veterans
http://www.va.gov/womenvet/

I hope you have that list copied somewhere, and I hope you post it as often as you can ( or at least in any PTSD thread.) I'm off to check out your links.

:hi:

He was on AAR and talking about the torture at Abu Ghraib and how he got some of the pictures that broke the story.

The mother of a female soldier (don't know if regular army or reserve) had duty at Abu Ghraib. When she got home the girl was completely changed in her personality. She broke off her engagement to her boyfriend, packed up and left her home. She broke off contact with her family. She went to live in the city and began going to a tattooist to have black circles tattooed on her body. Every week she would add more black circles to her body.

Her mom, deeply concerned, went through some the possessions that the girl had left at the home after coming back from Iraq. That is how some of the more famous pictures of the torture were found and then Sy Hersch got them. He specifically mentioned the series of shots where the man was naked and chained to the jail bars and the dog was threatening him.

This story sent chills down my spine.

Correlation wise, I'll die younger because I'm left-handed too. But you know, after all the hoopla and uproar, people settled down and STOPPED generalizing on correlation data.

This is NOT science because it has not been studied longitudinally nor do I believe these studies took the time to do a history of the individual woman soldier.

Let's just say after dozens of well controlled high subject number studies, I might be prone to state there might be SOME truth to this hypothesis, but NOT at present.

This is just another way to disrespect Women in the Military. BTW the women serving in MP units are right up their with the Infantry.

Damn these pseudo-scientific - sloppy conclusions from few if any VALID studies.

That is merely one type of study. Conversely, just because a study is longitudinal does not mean it's valid.

Research does use correlations to draw conclusions. Reputable studies also use validity and reliability measures. Respectable work does not get published in scholarly journals. There has been quite a lot of scholarly work on women and PTSD. Ongoing trauma does exacerbate the disorder, as does stress on any disorder. That is a commonly accepted in all schools of thought of psychology or psychiatry. It is not a new or invalid theory.

I did NOT mean to imply that only "a study" that's Longitudinal is valid. No, not at all However, we both know that it's an accumulation of MANY studies over time that creates "science" - where we can make valid generalizations to a population sample.

The past research regarding Women and PTSD did not consider the combat arena. Therefore we can NOT draw conclusions.

There's not near an adequate number of *valid studies* that control the crucial underlying factors (women's backgrounds, age, IQ, rank, etc.) to make ANY VALID glaring blanket conclusions.

All we can say is that "the CURRENT SAMPLE of this fancy 6 million dollar study (that's ONE study) is uncovering this *statistic*. In fact, there is NO study because there are NO CONTROLS.

Even IF a few studies concur with such generalizations, they can NOT claim unilaterally that WOMEN suffer PTSD in combat with greater frequency than men.

You should know the above, if you have also earned an advanced degree in Psychology, i.e., that this initial smattering of "Women in Combat" statistics gathering hardly equates to "a controlled study."

During the late 80s, I conducted research of PTSD as it relates to combat soldiers. Only recently has the research on combat PTSD been increased as most of my background research more recent than the Vietnam era (60s-75), came from research gleaned from Israeli Troops.

Also, as a person who has counseled Infantry soldiers (DOD GS09), some of which were experiencing PTSD from the Panamanian Invasion, I can assert with confidence, WE (the research community) have a long way to go to adequately help the average male soldier with PTSD, much less that of THE FEW (small sample for research validity) women who have become so afflicted.

Finally, one of the first cautions of my Research Design Course: Correlation does not prove causation. Making conclusions only on the basis of statistics gathering is a very "inelegant" if not erroneous method. The conclusions also must be highly qualified: For THIS ONE SAMPLE of WOMEN ... for this ONE DISTRIBUTION of AGES, for this ONE scattered DISTRIBUTION of RANKS, for this one sample DISTRIBUTION of various BACKGROUND HISTORIES.

No, this is not YET science, as there are not many studies in this arena (women in combat) and the above environmental factors are not controlled. I am disgusted that the Researchers are making these conclusions. Politics are everywhere ... they of all people (scientists) should know better. /rant off ... thanks for reading ;)

times fighting alongside men is that they weren't in the front of the battle but often had to pick up the battle axe or sword after their men had fallen. Often too, when the men were away at war, they often had to defend the homestead or castle against marauding invaders who took advantage of that fact.

There is a warrior samurai woman, Tomoe Gozen in ancient Japan who did just that. When her husband was away, it was her duty to defend the castle. She fought so well and bravely that she is remembered as a hero from those times even taking heads as the men did.

In Amazon lore, it was mostly the virgins went to battle and could not take a mate or have children until they had made their first kill in battle. This hints at the possibility that even the ancients understood that a woman with dependent children shouldn't be called up for that kind of duty except at last resort and when there is no more recourse.

How are these women supposed to care for children if they're mothers with the PTSD? This is so awful. :cry:

I personally would rather be called into combat than into a delivery room again.

In any case I don't believe they are any more prone than men!

Men are suppose to be strong and silent. They are not necessarily expected to be open about their problems. However, women are expected to be more open.