PTSD suicide rate exceeds ALL US deaths in Iraq/ Afghanistan

[Jeffersons Ghost]

Army veteran talks about struggles with post traumatic stress disorder
By Dan Magazu, [e-mail]
Posted: 01/31/2010 06:38:25 AM EST

LEOMINSTER -- Army Veteran Sam Rhodes and members of his infantry unit were devastated when they returned home from Iraq in 2004 having lost 21 soldiers in their squad. "To a man that served in my infantry unit, we all wanted to go back immediately," Rhodes said during a presentation at the Leominster Veterans Center on West Street Saturday. "I was able to get back to the Middle East within 30 days. The stuff that I struggled with in those 30 days home, they all went away when I got off the plane in Baghdad. That was our home."

Rhodes, a retired command sergeant major who served more than 29 years in the Army, including 30 months of combat experience during tours in Iraq, has battled with post traumatic stress disorder since 2005.

The disease affects one out of every six veterans and last year contributed to 334 suicides among service members, which is higher than the number of service members who were killed in Afghanistan or Iraq during the same time period, Rhodes said. The disease nearly caused him to take his own life in 2007.

[w8liftinglady]

1. my recent ltte was dedicated to this..

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=259x29063

[Jeffersons Ghost]

4. it needs publicizing thanks. HERE'S A PERFECT SONG FOR THIS PROBLEM:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJrftgq6KKw

I Have Seen The Rain lyrics
(feat. James T. Moore)

I have seen the rain
I have felt the pain
I don't know where I'll be tomorrow
I don't know where I'm going
I don't even know where I've been
But i know I'd like to see them again.

Spend my days just searching
Spend my nights in dreams
Stop looking over my shoulder baby
I've stopped wonderin' what it means
Drop out, burn out, soldier ho-oh they've said I should've been more
Probably so if i hadn't of been in that crazy damn Vietnam war.

I have seen the rain
I've survived the pain
Oh I've been home 30 years or so
And I'm just stepping up for the blame

Spend my days just searching
Spend my nights in dreams
Stop looking over my shoulder baby
I've stopped wonderin' what it means
Drop out, burn out, soldier ho-oh they've said I should've been more
Probably so if i hadn't of been in that crazy damn Vietnam war.

We have seen the rain, together
We have survived the pain, forever
Oh it's good to home again
Its good to be with my friends
Oh it's good to be home again
It's good to feel that rain

[niyad]

2. k and r--another generation of families will see their loved ones suffer with ptsd, and often kill

themselves. is there any more help for families in dealing with this than there was after vietnam, which was NONE. we had to deal with it, or not, completely on our own. I never wanted to see other families go through what we all did.

and george, and dick, and tony, have "no regrets" but then, they don't have to live with this, do they?

[patrice]

3. "...stuff we struggled with...all went away..." one wonders how much this addiction influences

the political futures of millions of Americans. Perhaps that is one reason that almost none of those "with their hair on fire" about deficit spending now said a peep in 2004 about the bill for War on Iraq being off budget.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

6. odd how "stuff we struggled with... all went away..." isn't it? listen to this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJrftgq6KKw

[patrice]

9. We have one of these in my family, though it's perhaps a little worse in that he

never was in combat in Viet Nam, so he seems to be compelled to "out-soldier" those who were, perhaps because he admires their relationships to one another.

My family also has a second generation of this in a young-man who was "special ed" in his very rural school district his whole time there and, later, was (part of Delta Force I believe) in Shock and Awe. He's been through at least one wife and a string of women, a few offspring. Doin' okay I guess. Doesn't come around the family much anymore.

Lots of drinking going on.

"Soldier Whore" + PTSD made me realize that I am making a mistake about PTSD. I used to think that they saw and were part of stuff, directly or indirectly, that was soooooooooooooooooo horrible that they can't get over it and the horror makes them suicidally sad. But that line about what "(goes) away" made me re-think that a bit . . . .

The problem is Meaning and how it is relevant to context, so the horror isn't just painfully sad, it's also meaning-less and, because, at rock-bottom, humans - even the more limited amongst us - are meaning-makers, that meaninglessness is a profound frustration.

I'm thinking of something a little like work-aholics here.

It's scary, indeed, to visualize a culture of War Slaves that would be programmed in very subtle and supremely powerful, but almost un-detectable, ways to perpetuate Soldier Whoredom in politics, jobs, entertainment, education, everything, not just within the military itself, but also throughout civilian culture too.

It's is also profoundly sad that "they give so much" of their humanity away and, THEN, they many become so dysfunctional and, some of them - in this addiction, even become DAMAGING to that which they gave it away for.

It looks to me as though that which they gave it away for, for too many of them, is bereft of the kinds of deep, beautiful, nourishing, LIVING meaning that is needed.

That also brings up questions about one of our most popular meaning-making tools, Religion. Personally, I don't think we NEED Religion to create the meanings that are necessary to life, but Religion IS the primary and most popular meaning-maker in our culture and it is, from the looks of this PTSD and other stress-related phenomena, quite a huge failure at doing so.

[lazer47]

10. You have no concept or Idea what you are talking about.

[patrice]

13. I know I don't. It IS in my Family, though, and around me in my culture. Is it wrong to

try to understand a little - at least for myself?

[lazer47]

18. PTSD has haunted me and a million other men and women

we have been ostracized, blamed, laughed at, criticized, I personally have lived with all that for 40yrs, and if you want to call someone a SOLDIER WHORE,, don't bitch when someone uses the word faggot, to describe same sex loving partners,,,,,,NT

[sce56]

20. I'd suggest you listen to the video with Pink

it is what her dad wrote and he used the term "Soldier Whore" He is a VietNam Vet! I have this it is the last song on her album "I'm not dead"

[Jeffersons Ghost]

22. I feel that song is the best cut on the CD

[patrice]

14. It's called trying to figure out something that works for me.

Perhaps that is not a characteristic that you share, but it is quite common nonetheless.

Why do you find it necessary to be assault-ive?

[patrice]

15. I honestly and respectfully would like to hear what you think of the quote in question, especially

the part about what "went away".

[lazer47]

19. It doesn't GO AWAY,,,,,,enough,, I don't discuss it,,

[patrice]

11. P.S. I think our culture lacks the meanings that are needed, because we are not Free.

The meaning-makers inside our heads need just enough uniformity to stand on, but beyond that, FREEDOM is essential to the processes by means of which meaning is constructed.

And for all of the lip service paid to Freedom in the country and though we may be relatively Free in some ways that are NOT useful to the meanings that we need, we are NOT Free in the ways that we need to be free in order to learn how to individually construct meanings that work for our lives.

But then, maybe there is NO meaning that CAN be extracted from programmed Death and Destruction, aside from the bonds that do form with whatever other humans that are available to relationship . . . hence Soldier Whores.

[The Backlash Cometh]

5. They sound like the walking dead.

[druidity33]

7. is there more to this story?

Do you have a link?

:shrug:

[justabob]

12. here is a link

http://www.sentinelandenterprise.com/local/ci_14306042

[Jeffersons Ghost]

16. I appologize... I thought the link was automatic and at the top... here's one:

http://www.sentinelandenterprise.com/ci_14306042

[Christa]

8. K & R nt

[Jeffersons Ghost]

17. thanks for all the recs and comments... this needs publicizing, understanding is key to solutions

[Karenina]

21. . .

[Mari333]

23. knr

[lonestarnot]

24. And slowing down diagnosis of same didn't help anybody.