Thread: The world I would love to live in.

PTSD doesn't just affect soldiers, it can affect ordinary people that have had trauma in childhood, front line responders, accident victims, crime victims. Shell shock, battle fatigue, has been around since the beginning of time. Having said that, a big difference I see, since the end of WWII is how poorly our veterans are treated.

Without getting into to much detail, I spend one evening a week, 5-11pm (and occasional days on the weekend) at a local Residential Rehabilitation Center for Addiction, and many of the people I try to help are veterans that have come back from deployments. Last summer was a particularly big (bad) year, as many Canadian soldiers of all ranks came back from Kandahar, Afghanistan.

They are all suffering from substance abuse problems, as well as PTSD. I've been through some training in PTSD, and these poor vets become addicts because they can't, "stop the tape(video) in their head". Smells, sounds, sights, trigger them, and the only way they can find peace, is to obliterate the feeling, "pause the tape" if you will, through self-medication. These soldiers, medics, etc., have been kept in a state of fight or flight for the entire deployment.

In Kandahar, "inside the wire", is where all the senses go partially off, they still get shelled/sniper fire however. "Outside the wire", they are on constant alert, in a perpetual state of fight or flight, and being soldiers, they have to suppress the natural instinct to flee, they can't run away, they're trained to fight. So they are stuck in this imposed unnatural state. Other natural instincts they have to suppress as well, normal human instincts of protecting your fellow man, women, children. The feelings of guilt and shame they come home with when they can't intervene while witnessing a horrendous act of violence on another innocent man, women or child is particularly traumatizing.

We were told of how the military would train them about IEDs. Many would be hidden in these bright yellow gas/oil cans. Well, it turns out the people use these can's for everything, they are everywhere, on the back of bikes, on every street corner....you get the picture, everything is a constant threat - there is no way to tell who is friend and who is enemy.

The Dr's say, what they know of it, that it just takes the right scenario and the right person to result in PTSD. Where the tape in their head won't stop, and they can't stop it, it won't stop, they are stuck in a heightened state of "fight" and it won't turn off, so they become addicts to try to find some peace.

It's terrible, a complete and utter tragedy that these veterans are thrown away, left in a horrible mental state, addicted, forgotten, and just told to, "get over it".

At the center, when we try to help them with their addiction, while concurrently helping them with their PTSD, we know that for every one that's sitting there, there are hundreds more, if not thousands, that are alone, forgotten, and have lost their careers, their friends, their families, and worst of all their hope.

Maybe that's a sign of the age we live in now, when we allow these people, our brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers, to be treated like disposable, broken, damaged goods.

Phrank

It has been that way since time began. We are or should be more aware of what is termed PTSD these days. Our government, yes the one that wraps themselves in the flag, seems to think we are so they pay what amounts to "lip service" in the way of treatment for returning vets. It is a disgusting national shame and I could not agree more with what you have said. Thank you for your volunteer work.

Bob

Originally Posted by BobH

Phrank

It has been that way since time began. We are or should be more aware of what is termed PTSD these days. Our government, yes the one that wraps themselves in the flag, seems to think we are so they pay what amounts to "lip service" in the way of treatment for returning vets. It is a disgusting national shame and I could not agree more with what you have said. Thank you for your volunteer work.

Bob

It is a national shame, and if it makes any sense, I receive far more than I give....

So firearms are off the debate table, sorry I was unaware of the rule.

When comparing different times it's probably better to take out the age out of question. I.e. compare being a 64 year old in 1950 vs in 2014, instead of comparing a childhood in the 50s vs. old age today.

It's much easier to see irresponsibility and failure in others than in ourselves. If current retirees wouldn't be taking in entitlements 3 times what they've put in during their work life the fiscal situation would be a lot different.

Originally Posted by gugi

When comparing different times it's probably better to take out the age out of question. I.e. compare being a 64 year old in 1950 vs in 2014, instead of comparing a childhood in the 50s vs. old age today.

It's much easier to see irresponsibility and failure in others than in ourselves. If current retirees wouldn't be taking in entitlements 3 times what they've put in during their work life the fiscal situation would be a lot different.

Gugi, Pls explane how retirees are taking in 3 times what they put into the system?
I draw SS benifits,I get X amt per/mo,I paid into the system for 50 yrs.
At the rate I am paid today it will take 30 yrs to get back what I actually paid in.

Originally Posted by aa1192

So firearms are off the debate table, sorry I was unaware of the rule.

Well, control laws are.

Originally Posted by pixelfixed

Gugi, Pls explane how retirees are taking in 3 times what they put into the system?
I draw SS benifits,I get X amt per/mo,I paid into the system for 50 yrs.
At the rate I am paid today it will take 30 yrs to get back what I actually paid in.

That's just what the numbers are, the typical 'middle class' person puts cumulatively X during their lifetime (adjusted for inflation), then after they retire before they die they get paid Y ~ 3*X.
You could be the exception of the small group that gets less than they put in, but that's not typical.

Gun control is off the table. Firearms in general are not.

If the US gov didn't give every "undocumented" worker's USA newborn baby citizenship, all kinds of $ out of Medicare and social security to the flood of immigrants ........ the trust fund would be fine. First of all it is solvent until years from now, and if they didn't dip into the funds to pay for all kinds of extraneous stuff, bridges to nowhere and the like .... if it was just used to pay SS to people who paid in for their working life it would be fine.

When I went down to the SS office in my county I expected to see a bunch of gray heads like mine. Instead it was standing room only with a bunch of young, relatively speaking, people applying for SSI. One guy I know who gets a hot $747.00 per month from SS, and that is his only income, applied for state assistance with Medicaid. He was denied. He makes too much money.

Originally Posted by gugi

That's just what the numbers are, the typical 'middle class' person puts cumulatively X during their lifetime (adjusted for inflation), then after they retire before they die they get paid Y ~ 3*X.
You could be the exception of the small group that gets less than they put in, but that's not typical.

Well with the average american males lifespan being 77.4 yrs,if they retire at 65, they will never get what they paid into it unless they surpass 77.4 yrs by a large margin