There’s something I have wanted to discuss for a little while now but didn’t feel quite ‘qualified’ to. In fact the other reason I hesitated was because I was unsure of my future career direction/choices. It is a comment about the military, or more specifically I should say it is about post-traumatic stress disorder in ex-military persons.
What do I know about the military? Actually, having always been a civilian and having no family members with military or political pursuits, you could say I know nothing about it. Even growing up during the course of a civil war of the kind South and Central America was famous for in the 1980s, my own family was always politically neutral and non-participant. But I admit I do have a very privileged position in my job where people often share with me their stories – and don’t we all have our own war stories to tell!
Now, I won’t violate the trust gifted to me by the men / patients who have told me their stories, but I don’t even need to because the themes of their stories are all so similar. At some point in their journey they have come across me for very simple reasons, for something so banal as to re-prescribe them a certain medication. Usually they will tell me that they have been on some medication for years and just need to continue it, they are content with it, and they need it. And the types of medications they are on are pills for insomnia, for anxiety, to help deal with substance dependency, for depression, for psychosis – essentially medications to help them deal with negative thoughts and noxious mental states. I have previously discussed how men in particular are rarely keen to take psychotropic medications because of some concept of misplaced pride, and yet here I encounter men who are almost desperate to continue on these medications. Do you know what the difference often is? These are men who have seen hell, it lives in their thoughts and memories – they are the men who have been in military combat. These are not weak or desperate men, on the contrary; these are the men every country calls their “heroes”!
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is not a new concept nor is it specifically related to military service. Basically it describes a negative mental state that occurs after a person has suffered any traumatic experience. They will often re-experience the negative emotions experienced at the time of the event; often accompanied with vivid recollections of the event itself also. They will feel fear, panic, pain, hypervigilance, etc., exactly as they once did, and often this will be unaffected by the time that has elapsed since the initial event. The initial event can be any traumatic experience, and it is different for each individual with PTSD. Having said that, there are few things in life quite akin to active military service life. And you know what kind of people go into the military? All kinds.
The men I’ve met who tell me their stories almost invariably say ‘I wish I had known’. They wish that someone had told them about the nightmares every night, the hypervigilance and anxiety that denies them enjoying even simple things like just walking down the street without feeling on edge as they once did fearing they would be shot, etc. They wish that someone had told them that joining the military wouldn’t just be a way to secure employment training, to learn self-discipline, to defend and serve one’s country, to procure excitement, or the other variety of reasons a person may join military service. The disenchantment comes when the brave men taking life-and-death risks consider that they were deceived by a sin of omission. And more than disenchantment is the reality that few tasks in this life are as psychologically-endangering as the tasks encountered in warfare.
Of course, the military is possibly the best institution at training personnel in a variety of tasks, and their personnel learn how to “do their jobs” effortlessly. However, how many other jobs are there where you are personally in charge in deciding whether the person standing in front of your weapon will live or die, or that the chances of you killing someone are about the same as those of getting yourself killed, or seeing other human beings (adults, children, civilian, enemies, comrades) been purposely injured with weapons / things that were specifically designed with the intent to harm others? My job is not that stressful; I’d dare say very few other people’s are too. There's no way of estimating which types of events will be psychologically-traumatic to a person - but you can almost be sure that the kind of tasks encountered in military service are quite unique and should at least come with a forewarning.
And that is what these men wish they had been told; that’s why a lot of them become disenfranchised with the whole institution. A lot of these men feel that they have been treated not as men, not as humans, but as “things”, as these commodities that shoot the guns, as if they were merely an extension of the firearms themselves and not human beings with thoughts and emotions and brains that capture moments and memories for years to come. They wish they had known that. It’s a shame we do this to our “heroes”. It’s a shame we feel the need to go to war at all or that those few in charge of making national decisions send others to “represent” them; but if we must fight, I dare to propose that we are at least kind enough to those on our side.
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