Post-traumatic stress 4 to 5 times higher in Iraq....

...according to this article that a friend e-mailed to me today

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Friday, March 4, 2005 5:13 AM
..............................The Patriot-News
..........................Friday, March 4, 2005
................................Harrisburg, Pa.

.........................DAVID HACKWORTH
......................................<>...............
.....BATTLE STRESS ALARMINGLY HIGH IN IRAQ

A recent survey reveals that soldiers from Old
Ironsides, the U.S. Army's mighty 1st Armored
Division - now back in Germany after months of
on-again, off-again slugging it out with insurgents
in Iraq - have been hitting the Sick Book hard.
But battle wounds aren't what's marching these
warriors into the Aid Station. It's that age-old conflict
chimera: post-traumatic stress. Whatever you want
to call the sucker - shell shock, combat fatigue or
Vietnam Stress Syndrome - this insidious consequence
of war has been sinking its claws into psyches since
some testosterone-driven stud first picked up a rock
and resolved a conflict problem by crushing a neighboring
caveman's skull.
What's needling my brain is that in some additional
Army studies where participating soldiers were assured
total confidentiality - a must in today's zero-defect Army,
where soldiers who publicly admit they're depressed or
having nightmares or temper-tantrums should plan to kiss
future promotions goodbye and expect their walking papers
at the end of their hitch - the number of Iraq veterans
copping to post-combat mental problems has more than
tripled from an average of 4 percent to 5 percent to a
scary 17 percent.
That high a percentage is a shocker, and the trend that
seems to be developing really blows me out. If 17 out of
every 100 returning vets are mentally down, our Army is
in serious trouble - there's no way any unit can sustain so
staggering a loss.
The grabber here is that this alarming figure just doesn't
track with World War II, Korea and Vietnam data, where
combat engagements often lasted for months, even years,
and the troops were literally wading through one blood bath
after another. For example, the 3rd Infantry Division fought
from Africa to V-E Day and racked up more than 400 days
of the toughest imaginable combat duty but suffered only
a fraction of the stress casualties claimed by today's
troopers.
And in Korea from 1950 to '53, where I went from rifleman
to company commander, we saw daily fighting against fanatic
opponents, during which my units took serious casualties:
On Feb. 6, 1951, my 40-man rifle platoon took eight dead
and 28 wounded, and on Nov. 4, my 50-man Raider unit lost
every man save six. But neither of these exceptionally hard-
pressed units lost one man to combat fatigue.
Although the daily intensity of combat was nowhere near
comparable with World War II and Korea, the Vietnam War
came with its own fiendish mind-twisters: a frontless war
and the anxieties that went with fighting a devious and
clever foe who fought from the shadows and whose hit-
and-run tactics wreaked their own special thousand cuts
to the brain.
And when will any of us who were there ever forget the
wall-to-wall carpet of mines and booby traps, where each
and every time a grunt put a foot down he wondered if
he'd lose a leg or a life? Still, during 17 months doing the
death dance with the Screaming Eagles and then the 9th
Division, I can recall only one soldier who lost it.
Regarding Iraq, of course it, too, is no cakewalk. As in
Vietnam, there have been some brief but very fierce
firefights - such as Fallujah - against a skilled and barbaric
enemy. Another frontless war, another evasive, ghostlike
opponent - and bigger and better, constantly improving
mines and booby traps as ubiquitous as the desert sand.
The huge spike in combat-stress cases is probably in
part a result of the highly effective new Army program
to spot any signs of this disorder early, which has never
before been done on so sweeping a scale. And it's about
time. In the past, it was always just use 'em and lose 'em.
But although the docs are doing an excellent job tending
to the fallout, I'm convinced the underlying issue is that
initial entry training - i.e., basic - has gotten so soft and
stress-free that we're sending a generation of young soldiers
into battle without giving them the right stuff to make it
through the crucible of combat. And that's not only unfair,
it's irresponsible - and tragic.
Because the key to combat survival continues to be an
iron discipline coupled with a mind and body that have
been steeled to withstand the unspeakable stress that
comes with the oh-so-futile, mind-bending carnage of
man killing man.

--Eilhys England contributed to this column.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Col. David H. Hackworth (USA Ret.) is SFTT.org co-founder
and Senior Military Columnist for DefenseWatch magazine.
For information on his many books, go to his home page at
<http://www.hackworth.com where you can sign in for his
free weekly Defending America. Send mail to P.O. Box 11179,
Greenwich, CT 06831.

even if their bodies survive, unless they are psychopaths.

We need to make damned sure that any time we ask somebody else's children to go fight in our name that there is absolutely no alternative.

...of war, or don't want to acknowledge it.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/heart/

Among the items of interest is the fact that the psychologist may be on the front trying to keep people in shape to fight, but the military brass on the ground frequently countermand their decisions and/or berate and ridicule the soldiers that the psychiatrist is trying to help, thereby undoing the psychiatrist's work. It was a very sad and distressing picture of how things really are, not the appearances that Pentagon wants us to believe.

..Patten puppets, slapping around the combat fatigued soldier whose humanity has somehow overcome the military bullshit training of honor and glory and sends these kids back into denial over and over and over again. The latest psychological strategy, give the battle weary troops Ecstasy, makes them fight harder, but they still aren't allowed to fuck anyone!

I'm a combat Marine veteran of Viet Nam and was diagnosed with PTSD (100% - unemployability) only two or three years ago after a zillion jobs, two broken marriages, and a lot of alcohol.
I watched "The Heart of a Soldier" on PBS a while back had some good info and they may still have some interview clips and other helpful info that were helpful to me on the Internet.
I worry about the guys and girls coming back from Iraq. The military doesn't want to scare them away with warnings about PTSD before they're even signed and that's understandable as far as it goes.
I don't have all the answers, but I do know I struggled for so many years and refused, out of pride, to allow myself to be evaluated. The soldiers coming back from Iraq shouldn't have to.
My understanding is that they are having everyone returning to fill out a questionnaire which indicates whether you have anything wrong, i.e. nightmares, nervousness, losing your temper easily, etc. The problem is, when you step off that plane, you don't want to be held up by evaluation for two or three days. You want to go home.
Maybe they should have a compulsory one or two day evaluation for everyone who worked in a combat zone when they return home.
Anyway, I'm just thankful there's attention being paid to it.

Vietnam Stress Syndrome?

Never heard of this term, but it does not surprise me.

I firmly believe that there is less PTSD than is thought ... that instead it is the same chemical poisoning that the 'gulf war syndrome' vets have.

Which I suspect is poisoining by this chemical

And why it 'looks' the same in the Vietnam Veterans Not only that, but all the other things you mention too. Many do try to 'self medicate' with alcohol, and of course it is counter productive. It is also has ethanol type chemicals so you are making a bad matter worse for more reasons than you thought.

I suspect it was the 2-butoxyethanol & diethylene glycol monobutyl ether chemicals that caused the primary harm to the Vietnam vet ... more than dioxin. I suspect it was in gun cleaners, and that it was mixed with the dioxin mix in 'kerosene' or jet fuel ... so that the dioxin mix would adhere to the foliage.

Do you remember a time when you were having any flu-like symptoms? And eyes burned and hurt, and urine turned dark, and then THE FATIGUE?

AND by this time, you would have red blood cells that are immature. Maybe in the early years, trace blood in urine. AND a lot of other symptoms. This chemical, best I can tell,causes quite a lot of odd seemingly unrelated ailments, just as they talk about for the first gulf war & THE SYNDROME