unionmom said:
gog8tors said:
unionmom said:
They need to be taken care of but they do not deserve Purple Hearts, not in my opinion.
It's too hot for me to read anything thoroughly right now. I'll have to come back to it later. I'm sitting on the fence with this.
I'll give my very, very short explanation for my answer (though there is a lot more to it) ... a bullet basically goes through every body the same so there is a level playing field (so to speak) with a physical injury but not everyone is made up of the same mental strength and/or capacity and things that one person can go through with absolutely no impact could completely destroy another. The individual that is impacted should absolutely be taken care of but do they deserve an award, a special honor for such a situation just because they were not able to handle the stress? If every member of a unit is shot, they will all bleed ... if every member in a unit is exposed to the same stress they will not all have the same mental and emotional issues.
I have to address this because as a 25-year veteran and someone who has been to war four different times and have been shot at and has had mortars and rockets blowing up around me. That kind of stress is a lot greater than the stress someone experiences because they don't know how they're going to pay the bills this month.
I just recently returned from Afghanistan where I worked this time as a contractor and not a Soldier. I supported Special Operations Forces in biometrics and forensics. I trained these guys on how to collect biometrics on military aged male Afghans as well as how to collect evidence without disturbing any forensic evidence. Part of my responsibility was to go out with various teams I trained to ensure they were doing things correctly; if not to make on the spot corrections as they collected.
These little "excursions" were dangerous as heck because we would have to walk miles. While you walked, you had to keep maintain a high level of situational awareness because the bad guys don't wear uniforms so you can't tell them from the good guys. You also had to watch for ambushes, but worst of all you had to look out for signs of IEDs buried in the ground. Imagine the horror seeing the guy in front of you get blown to pieces when one of these things go off. Do you think that doesn't do something psychologically to a person? I was scared as crap each time I went out with these guys. Want to know something else? These guys were scared as crap each time they went out on a mission as well.
Like I said, the experience of war and the horror one sees in war is not the same kind of stress you experience when money is short and it's time to pay bills. The experiences of war changes you. PTSD is serious business and it royally pisses me off when someone downplays it as "not being able to handle stress."
I remember while I was in Iraq in 2006, a rocket landed on the other side of a 24' high concrete wall from me and my men. Had that wall not been there, a lot of us most likely would have been dead. Everyone handled that differently psychologically. A warrant officer and I made jokes about it. I remember one guy who was always joking around and talked a lot before that incident became quite withdrawn afterward because in his mind he came real close to dying. It took him a couple of weeks before he returned his normal self, but each time he heard an explosion off in the distance, fear was all over his face and his whole body would shake.
I knew Vietnam vets who have psychological problems to this day because of what they experienced in Vietnam. Ask gog8tors husband who is a Vietnam vet if he came out of Vietnam the same person he was before he went there. Better yet, ask him if the stress he experienced there was the same kind of stress someone experiences working in an office, restaurant, factory, etc.
I personally know quite a few people who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan who suffer from PTSD. It's a serious psychological injury. These friends of mine may never be the same person they were before they went to war. Several of them have turned to alcohol or drugs to hide from the horrors they experienced.
Unionmom, you've never pissed me off before until this post of yours. You don't know crap about PTSD or what we experienced in war.
No, I don't suffer from PTSD; but as I referenced earlier, several of my friends do and it pisses me off when someone belittles what they are suffering. I suggest you do some research on PTSD.
) ) but I don't judge them for that. You go ahead and be mad at me. I'm ok with that. You go ahead and disagree with me. I'm ok with that. I still stand by my position. They deserve to be properly taken care of and, if so deemed, come up with an award for them. In my mind they do not qualify for Purple Heart.
