NEWS: Defining Wounds in Modern Warfare

POLITICS: Defining Wounds in Modern Warfare

Today is Memorial Day, a holiday to honor the lives lost and sacrifices made by America's servicemen and women. The President visited Arlington National Cemetary and gave a speech honoring our veterans past and present.. Others took the occasion to try to score cheap political points. Over at Real Clear Politics, someone thought it was an ideal occasion to address an issue that isn't getting a lot of attention. The question raised is 'Purple Hearts for PTSD?'

Wow, what an incredible asshole. All anti-war sentiment is from people too scared to serve in uniform or overly obsessed with psychoanalysis. Better yet, all those Veterans groups you thought existed to offer support and assistance to veterans trying to readjust to civilian life are just out to scam Uncle Sam out of your tax dollars.

Which brings us to the questions that prompted me to post this. How do we define PTSD? The author or the piece, Thomas Lipscomb, obviously believes it isn't quite a 'real' injury and shouldn't be treated with the same seriousness as combat wounds. PTSD is tricky all around since, as a disorder, it's only been recognized within the last twenty five years. NPR discusses the history of PTSD and some of its effects here.

We know that as far back as World War I soldiers have experienced shell shock, various strong emotional and occasional physical symptoms to the stresses of combat. However, as the NPR piece notes, there were many challenges with the diagnosis of what was once called Post-Vietnam Syndrome, including soldiers being misdiagnosed with schizophrenia, some were even subject to shock treatment. Eventually, PTSD was listed in the DSM II, although it is still a controversial issue. As the NPR and Thomas Lipscomb both mention, it is the most commonly 'faked' disorder. Sometimes, those attempting to collect VA benefits for it aren't even soldiers.



From Lipscomb:

So, we know that among any group as large as the United States Military there's going to be a few trying to scam the system, but if the system can't even decide what PTSD should merit in terms of benefits, it creates a lot of grey area as to who is scamming and who is actually looking for help. And, worse, there's evidence that the Veterans Administration is aware of PTSD's scope and scale and wants to find a way to avoid diagnosing it.

So, on this Memorial Day, let's ask ourselves what we can and should be doing for the troops that serve and protect our Nation and its interests. As evidence mounts of not just PTSD, but also epidemic suicide rates among soldiers returning home, we have to ask what the true costs of this war are. How are we defining our wounded and what can be done for those whose scars are psychological and not physical? How can we do right by those that have served, while preventing dubious and unscrupulous people from profiting from falsified illnesses and disorders? How do we do right by those that have sacrificed so much for us?

Ironic, considering Lipscomb is obviously insane himself.

A fine article, Mr. Sick.

I don't think PTSD sufferers should get a Purple Heart. I think they should authorize a new award for PTSD. The Purple Heart should be reserved for physical injuries.

I think I will conduct a little informal and statisically unsound poll of people who enter my office...

Like all neuro-psychological afflictions, PTSD is hard to exactly define. People in general have a hard time analyzing mental illnesses because they run into that brick wall (the poor human understanding of the physical function of consciousness). People would like to pin down a specific structural deficit in the brain, because it would make things so much easier. Of course what one construes as a deficit when one isn't even quite sure how structure relates to emergent function is a matter of perspective. Which comes from those structural differences in your brain.

bow chicka BOW wow...

Pa-da-bum, pa-da-pa-da-bum... (the rapid staccato of konga drums)

Seriously though, although I think that an "award" for being injured is a bit bizarre in the first place, an injured soldier/vet does need to be honored for the blood they've shed and the turmoil they've suffered. As far as PTSD suffering goes, I think that may be a bit problematic considering the stigma it carries with it. Such things and injuries should be a private matter.

There's a quote from the NPR piece I didn't include in which someone told Jack Smith that if the military were to recognize PTSD after Vietnam the cost of veterans' compensation would've bankrupted the Federal Government. Which makes for a piss-poor excuse for not recognizing PTSD, but really raises the question, how the fuck do we deal with this without selling California to China?

Although, as ever, I'm fine with any plan that involves getting California out of the Union.

Alaska and Hawaii can come too? Oregon and Washington might want to join us... I say we take along Baja California and British Columbia while wer're at it... Shoot, might as well just go all the way round the Pacific Coast, we can bring the world to it's knees!!! The Empire of the Ring of Fire will rule with a progressive iron fist! Mwa ha ha ha, mwa ha ha ha haaaaa!!!

Sedition aside, the rest of the country would really miss all the extra revenue generated by the state, not to mention our electorate. (Then again, some might just be willing to say "good riddance").

The logistics of that government would be a nightmare. But it might provide proper treatment for PTSD.

You dare doubt the power of the Ring? The logistics are quite simple, we control the spice, we control the universe. The sandworms will help us police and control the globe... Ok then, maybe blue wales instead.

Save the whales, save the world. the spice must flow. FRODO LIVES!

FRODO LIVES!

OhSoOrdinary's Little Informal and Statisically Unsound Poll of People Who Entered Her Office

I started with the RCP article and decided to find more info off a source that wasn't, y'know, a complete frothing at the mouth fucking lunatic who's convinced that no one could be against a war unless they were from Berkeley, obsessed with Freud and totally against even the notion of violence to begin with. Everything else I read seems to indicate the argument over whether or not Vets should qualify for a Purple Heart from PTSD seems to be happening mostly in Liscomb's head. The more I read the more curious I was about what if anything is being done about this, the memo from The New York Times wasn't very reassuring at all.

Since we're not sure whether structure relates to emergent function, your point rests on faulty assumptions.

I know a few folks with purple hearts whose injuries haven't affected their lives one bit since the day they got them. I also know a guy who was never physically hurt but was a mental mess when he came back, so much so that several clinicians at the agency we worked for became worried that he was too unstable to work safely with kids.

I don't know anything about the military or why it awards medals, but I know which of the vets I know is going to need services for the rest of his life.

Eventhough; as FTR said so eloquently, I may have "a pandering and simplistic worldview" I can readily see a way to drastically cut down on the cases of PTSD.

STOP SENDING OUR SERVICE PEOPLE TO FIGHT IN USELESS FUCKING WARS SCATTERED AROUND THE WORLD.

In looking back, I may be showing an overly simplistic world view. Not sure about the pandering though. Still, it pisses me off to see us send our best and brightest to die for some other guys real estate when we have so many problems that need to be solved here at home.

I don't think you're going to get a lot of people around here disagreeing with you, but the trouble is that that solution still doesn't solve the thousands of possible cases already incurred.

You are correct on that. Hopefully if we could stop new cases from being made that would be a step in the right direction.

For the government to not regognize or treat the disorder is criminal. I have known many vets with this condition. Many who still suffer from it and it should be treated.

Actually veterans are not the only people who suffer from PTSD. Police, Firefighters. Paramedics, etc as well as survivors of any tragedy or harrowing experience from Oklahoma City to the World Trade Towers attack to a dog or bear attack, etc. As I am writing this I wonder if the victims of child and/or spousal abuse could not also be included in this catagory.

What do you think?

Are the PTSD casualties considered in the cost analysis which I'm sure general staffs and governments do before they get involved in wars? (Apart from the Iraq debacle, of course. There they didn't even have an exit plan.)

This is my opinion and only that; however, I seriously doubt it. I don't think they were really aware of PTSD until after Vietnam. Since, as you have said, they did not have an exit plan or strategy in Iraq I am sure they did not figure in the cost. Remember that this is a war that we allegedly "won" in approximately two weeks. I am sure they were totally unprepared for the resulting occupation and its casualties. I think that the nature of this war with the high incidence of casualties due to IEDs, etc. results in greater PTSD. I don't think you ever get used to stuff blowing up unexpectedly.

There is a rock quarry near my home. They blast the rock loose most days Mon thru Fri at approximately 11:30 am. In the 5 years I have lived there I have never gotten used to it. It still makes me "jump" every time it goes off; even though I know it is going to happen and I know it is harmless. I have a hard time imagining what several deployments to Iraq where IEDs seem to be a daily fact of life would do to a person.