Believe me, this article is CHILLING. With well-armed, desperate troops, very badly damaged and a declaration of MARTIAL LAW and a drive to push people to accept the "domestic mercenaries" option ..
Things will be HELL .. I mean it . LITERAL HELL ON EARTH.
There is a failure of WILL to implement proper public policy - even as Baghdad falls. The huge huge soul sickness that envelops us is a disaster in the making.
Allen knows well what he is talking about about PTSD, and I have posted his great articles on healing from PTSD previously.
As the theocracy comes forward to claim control of the government, just consider the very real possibilities .. and the US is already BROKE .. and all this information is applicable to Afghani vets here in Canada as well.
I wrote my warnings about this on OpED quite a while ago -
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_virginia_070620_
about_bloody_time_2c_b.htm
The PR goes on and on and on - the Cheney ripoffs of US taxpayer funds to "reconstruct" Iraq and Afghanistan for Halliburton/KBR citadels continues. Reconstruction funds (see my SIGIR/Stuart Bowen links) continue to go missing.
And those who suffer grave physical and moral problems continue to get little or nothing. ENOUGH!! Keep the spotlight on this issue!!
I know ALL about PTSD - I have ALL seventeen symptoms. It's horrifying and can make you completely dysfunctional. No, I get no help up here in Canada although I suffer from it, save from my GP.
We have TONS of work to do ahead of us to heal as nations from these bloody, bloody soul destroying wars brought on by NEOCONS, and paid for by US, the taxpayers and productive people (and you do not need to be a vet or a taxpayer to be productive, either!!) New public health policies cannot be ignored at a US federal level, that is for SURE.
All I can say is this - FOR SHAME! Bring on the ICC hearings and bring them on SOON!!
http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_ladybroa_080215_
special_prosecutor_i.htm
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/global-people-for-the-impeachment-
of-richard-cheney
Please sign this impeachment petition!
Bring a focus on ALL the problems.
Send pennies, dimes, nickels and $500 bills to IAVA.org. Let them have a platform everywhere. They do a GREAT JOB, as I often say.
While BuZh and buddies (Michael Mukasey for one) allow torturous tasers to proliferate and Big Pharma continues to see POISONS in the form of atypical antipsychotics and suicide-inducing antidepressants, this is what is TRULY GOING ON!! It is HORRIFYING. Let the vets who have committed WAR CRIMES long and loudly and GRIEVE what they have done - But DON'T let them commit suicide from lack of funding or lack of concern on our parts.
Please. My own son went on mainstream TV on this issue. Now he has lost his wife and his children .. and no, he does not speak with me. That doesn't matter, I love him anyway and have NO desire to see him suffer. NONE. Particularly not in THIS horrific way. He is my SON and those are my grandchildren - the future of AMERICA with valuable BLOOD And ties to American soil who need to know their FULL HISTORY.
Help me help them. I say this again, PLEASE.
So much damage, so much healing to be done .. things to cry long and deeply about. The Empire is falling . is this what we want America's (and Canada's) "legacy" to look like as it sinks deeper into the morality void for its citizens?
Veeger
THE WALKING DEAD / P.T.S.D. REVISITED  | | |    |
Our European friends clearly see Bush for what he really is and what we refuse to acknowledge ~ a moral coward masquerading as a world leader. Posed on his wooden horse of hubris he has become a modern day Don Quixote flailing away at the windmills of the evil world he himself has created and remaining in deliberate denial of the human chaos and unneccessary deaths he is reponsible for: Allen L Roland
05/17/07 - -- -SAN FRANCISCO, May 15 (IPS) - At the beginning of May, Corporal Cloy Richards tried to kill himself.
He punched out all his windows and cut major arteries," his mother Tina Richards told IPS. "He had to go to the hospital because he almost bled to death."
loy Richards, who lives in rural Salem, Missouri, has served two deployments in the Marine Corps in Iraq. The military lists him as 80-percent combat disabled.
His mother says he has knee and arm injuries, as well as post-traumatic stress disorder, and currently has a claim pending with the Army for a traumatic brain injury.
"It's something that affects us every single day," Tina said, "when he's 23 years old and he can't even climb the stairs. He has bad nightmares where he thinks he's back in Iraq."
Richards said her son sustained most of his injuries after his first tour in Iraq, adding that the family protested his second deployment to no avail. After four years on active duty, Cloy Richards is now in the individual ready reserve and faces the possibility of a third deployment to Iraq.
New guidelines released by the Pentagon in December allow commanders to redeploy soldiers suffering from traumatic stress disorders
According to the military newspaper Stars and Stripes, service-members with "a psychiatric disorder in remission, or whose residual symptoms do not impair duty performance" may be considered for duty downrange. It lists post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a "treatable" problem.
PTSD is an anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to an event or ordeal in which grave physical harm occurred or was threatened, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. A person having a flashback may lose touch with reality and believe that the traumatic incident is happening all over again.
"It's just terrifying," said Dr. Karen Seal, a clinician at San Francisco's Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Centre who treats soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and other psychological illnesses.
Seal told IPS that patients under her care have been deployed despite serious mental health conditions.
"I feel like writing them a medical excuse," she said, "but that's not my responsibility as a VA clinician. Because I'm a VA provider, I don't have the authority to do that."
According to a study co-authored by Seal and her colleagues at the Centre, about one- third of the more than 100,000 returning veterans seen at VA facilities between Sep. 30, 2001 and Sep. 30, 2005 were diagnosed with mental illness or a psycho-social disorder such as homelessness and marital problems, including domestic violence. Over half suffered from more than one disorder.
Other researchers suggest those statistics may only represent the tip of the iceberg. Many veterans, they note, don't come forward to seek care. The stigma associated with post- traumatic stress disorder may account for part of this gap, they say.
In addition, according to recent report by Linda Bilmes of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, waiting lists for returning veterans are "so long as to effectively deny treatment to a number of veterans."
In the May 2006 edition of Psychiatric News, Bilmes notes that VA Undersecretary of Health Policy Coordination Frances Murphy wrote that when services are available, "waiting lists render that care virtually inaccessible."
There is also the issue of geography.
"One of the disconnects and failures in planning for this war is that the Veterans Administration is essentially configured in an urban way," Bilmes told IPS. "That makes a lot of sense for recruiting specialists and staffing the facilities. However, recruiting for the military in this war tends to come primarily from small, rural America. So, what we don't have is enough mental health care for veterans in these rural communities when they come home."
Last Thursday, the VA's Inspector General issued a report estimating that 1,000 veterans under its care commit suicide every year.
The report also found that vets are at increased risk of suicide because many VA clinics don't have 24-hour care or adequate mental health screening, and lack properly trained personnel.
The report, which was requested last year by Rep. Michael Michaud, a Democrat of Maine, said clinics should work harder so veterans can seek treatment without feeling stigmatised, and recommended additional screening for patients with traumatic brain injury, a type of brain damage caused by projectiles like roadside bombs which many are calling the "signature injury" of the Iraq war.
"The problem is that traumatic brain injury, which is an anatomic, physiologic problem, sort of intermingles with post-traumatic stress disorder," Dr. William Schecter, the chief of surgery at San Francisco General Hospital, explained to IPS. "This is going to be a lifelong challenge for the individuals who have suffered these injuries." (END/2007)
