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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Sympathy for troubled soldiers? Don't think so.
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
We're hearing a lot about soldiers who went off to Afghanistan lately in Canada. They come back with "operational stress injury" meaning they are traumatised psychologically. I find myself unsympathetic. Because soldiers train to kill people and to create the the sorts of atrocities that now apparently they find trouble them. Gee, you shot up a town and killed civilians and now your buddy's leg is blown off? Hmmm.
The story that got me to post this was a recycled news story about a father who shot a boy, 10 or 12 years old, and now is troubled because he has his own son about the same age. I pity the son. Not thinking much in the way of kindness for the father. You made your bed, have your nightmares in it.
If someone subjects themselves to something, which is the very nature of the job, and they knew going in, what really do we owe them? No doubt some of those who've tortured people will also claim that their actions trouble them, and that we should be sympathetic.
Do we think the WW2 concentration and extermination camp guards warrant our sympathy as well? Not happening, just not happening.
[ 10. January 2014, 21:16: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
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Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
I think to compare ordinary soldiers to concentration and extermination camp guards is appalling. The 'troubled' soldiers you talk about are ILL. PTSD is a serious mental illness and should be treated appropriately, and istm that these soldiers are not getting the proper treatment. Mental illness is not what soldiers sign up for, no.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Concentration camp guards were also soldiers. So are the torturers today. I'm sure they are all traumatised. That's what they signed up for. Did they think they'd enjoy killing and watching others kill their fellow soldiers? I blame soldiers for being soldiers. Just like I think we should hold everyone responsible for their conduct and life choices.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
Blaming soldiers for their mental health problems is a seriously shitty thing to do, and it's clear that you don't understand being a soldier or why people become soldiers at all. Nobody joins because they want to kill people ffs. I'm a pacifist and I still get that. What disgusting things you are saying.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Huia
Shipmate
# 3473
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Posted
I keep starting to post, then deleting.
no prophet I think I understand where you are coming from, but I think it's too black and white. People choose to be soldiers for a number of reasons and when they sign up I don't think they really understand how it will be for them.
I do think those who commit war crimes should be held responsible, tried and if found guilty, punished for what they did, but that shouldn't preclude them receiving treatment for PTSD. To do anything else smacks of revenge, rather than justice.
Huia
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Charity gives food from the table, Justice gives a place at the table.
Posts: 10382 | From: Te Wai Pounamu | Registered: Oct 2002
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Gramps49
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# 16378
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Posted
Speaking as a veteran I am disturbed by your original post, no prophet. Most soldiers enlist because of patriotism for their country. Many also go into it to learn skills other than killing, if not in the military directly, then indirectly through college courses and technical training. There is also the economic incentive. Often times people enlist because they cannot find other work.
Most soldiers stay within the rules of engagement. They are trained to respect civilians and will avoid shooting up their villages. The Canadian Military has a long history of being peacekeepers in very dangerous theatres.
Operational Stress Injury, or Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, develops after experiencing a terrifying ordeal of harm or the threat of physical harm. It has been my experience that it can come after one such experience; but with most soldiers it comes after repeated ordeals. No matter how hard you train for it, when your sense of self is so overwhelmed your brain almost gets rewired.
When I was in the military it was estimated 30% of those in direct combat will experience PTSD. Now they find it is much more pervasive and can even impact support troops as well. You have to realize that many of these troops have had repeated tours of duty, if not in Afghanistan, there are other assignments.
To my knowledge, there has been no accusation of any Canadian atrocity against a village. I know that there is some question of handing over POWs to the United States which was prohibited in the Geneva Conventions, but I think over all your troops have served honorably given the situation.
Your troops are not baby killers. They have served their country well. Welcome them home. Support them as they adjust back to civilian life.
Posts: 2193 | From: Pullman WA | Registered: Apr 2011
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John Holding
Coffee and Cognac
# 158
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Posted
As I recall, having heard a CBC report about this, the guy with PTSD and the 10 year old daughter (not son) had nothing at all to do with killing the 10 year old boy in Afganistan. He witnessed someone shooting a man on a motorcycle and was then one of those who discovered that the bullet had smashed through the face of the small boy holding on to his uncle who was the target. The solder was, I think, a medic, who had to try and treat the child, and failed. Mercifully, one could say, the child died.
If ever there was a reasonable cause for someone to suffer from PTSD (and there are lots), this one was. Comparing this medic with concentration camp guards or torturers deserves the kind of response that could only be delivered in Hell.
John
Posts: 5929 | From: Ottawa, Canada | Registered: May 2001
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
What the others said. I am also against the military action in Afghanistan, but I can distinguish between the war criminal/ concentration camp guard and the average soldier on the ground, some of whom may be doing their best to be disciplined and establish law and order.
Some may indeed have killed civilians. Some will have done so deliberately and are culpable, some will have been negligent, and others will have been put in an impossible situation by their superiors and by those ordering the war and now bitterly regret it.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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anoesis
Shipmate
# 14189
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gramps49:
Speaking as a veteran I am disturbed by your original post, no prophet. Most soldiers enlist because of patriotism for their country. Many also go into it to learn skills other than killing, if not in the military directly, then indirectly through college courses and technical training. There is also the economic incentive. Often times people enlist because they cannot find other work.
Most soldiers stay within the rules of engagement. They are trained to respect civilians and will avoid shooting up their villages. The Canadian Military has a long history of being peacekeepers in very dangerous theatres.
Operational Stress Injury, or Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, develops after experiencing a terrifying ordeal of harm or the threat of physical harm. It has been my experience that it can come after one such experience; but with most soldiers it comes after repeated ordeals. No matter how hard you train for it, when your sense of self is so overwhelmed your brain almost gets rewired.
When I was in the military it was estimated 30% of those in direct combat will experience PTSD. Now they find it is much more pervasive and can even impact support troops as well. You have to realize that many of these troops have had repeated tours of duty, if not in Afghanistan, there are other assignments.
To my knowledge, there has been no accusation of any Canadian atrocity against a village. I know that there is some question of handing over POWs to the United States which was prohibited in the Geneva Conventions, but I think over all your troops have served honorably given the situation.
Your troops are not baby killers. They have served their country well. Welcome them home. Support them as they adjust back to civilian life.
Thank you for this measured and insightful post. Interestingly, I recently read a piece on our local news website, in which a former officer detailed his battle with PTSD. ( here ) NoProphet, I suggest you read it - all of it, even though it is fairly lengthy. This guy, at least, isn't asking anyone to feel sorry for him. He is talking about PTSD to raise awareness of the damage it can do, not only to the sufferer, but to pretty much anyone they come in contact with.
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The history of humanity give one little hope that strength left to its own devices won't be abused. Indeed, it gives one little ground to think that strength would continue to exist if it were not abused. -- Dafyd --
Posts: 993 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Oct 2008
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betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
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Posted
I'm on my fourth attempt at posting a reply to this thread, and I still can't do it. Jaw dropping, not least because I served, I know people who've woken up in Selly Oak Hospital when the last thing they were aware of was being in some Afghan village, and I raise money, nowhere near as much as I could or should, for Combat Stress: The Ex-Services Mental Welfare Society. Talk about hitting a raw nerve. I just think you don't get it - I've never met anyone who joined up to kill people, and I reject practically every word of the OP's posts. To be honest, should this surface in Hell, I'm not even sure I want to follow it over there as it's far, far too close to home.
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And is it true? For if it is....
Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
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chive
Ship's nude
# 208
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Posted
I think the division of people with mental illness into the 'deserving' and the 'underserving' is pernicious and wrong. To me it has resonance with the nonsense spoken about 'innocent' victims of AIDS as opposed to those who clearly deserved it.
PTSD is fucking awful. I know that because it is part of my every day life. People with PTSD need help irrespective of how they got it. Otherwise their, and everyone around them, lives can be destroyed.
Yes, people should be held responsible if they commit war crimes but to hold soldiers up as deserving PTSD is utterly wrong. And I say that as a pacifist.
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'Edward was the kind of man who thought there was no such thing as a lesbian, just a woman who hadn't done one-to-one Bible study with him.' Catherine Fox, Love to the Lost
Posts: 3542 | From: the cupboard under the stairs | Registered: May 2001
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Highfive
Shipmate
# 12937
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Posted
Here here to helping people with PTSD.
Posts: 111 | From: Brisbane | Registered: Aug 2007
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
If we accept the fact that we have soldiers, and have trained them specifically to kill - and most people have a huge reticence to shooting someone, let alone charging at them, bayonets fixed - then we have to understand that this is not only psychologically damaging but also that we have to have mechanisms in place to unwind that training.
Most former soldiers reintegrate into society just fine (I live with one). But they are disproportionately represented in our prisons and in our homeless shelters. We have a shitty attitude to mental health at the best of times, and frankly, no prophet, you're not helping anyone.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
Jade Constable, I don't always find myself agreeing with you, but you're bang on here.
Also No Prophet's equating ordinary career soldiers with concentration and extermination camp guards is hopelessly off piste.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
I blame soldiers for being soldiers.
My father volunteered for WWII, fought in North Africa, the Greek mainland and Crete,and then spent the rest of the war in a German POW camp.
He never regretted his experience, and was glad to have played a small part in the defeat of fascism, but often woke us in the middle of the night with his nightmares.
There was little awareness of, or treatment for, the psychological trauma suffered by ex-soldiers in those days.
I'd call you to Hell, but you're not worth it.
You are nothing but a complete arsehole.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
I'm no great fan of the military, and certainly not a fan of war.
But, as was said upthread, people join for all sorts of reasons. Here, many young people join because it's a way out of bad circumstances. Recruiting ads on TV push honor, duty, purpose, etc., and tend to be scheduled around TV shows that may get viewers all fired up about those sorts of things--e.g., sci-fi action shows. Many potential recruits are extremely naive, and don't really expect anything bad to happen. Plus recruiters lie, so they can meet their quota of recruits.
When 9/11 happened, lots of Americans signed up right away for the military. They wanted to get Bin Laden & co. For the most part, that wasn't what they wound up doing. And they were massively lied to. They paid for those lies, and inadequate preparation, and lack of appropriate body armor and supplies, and for the arrogant hallucinations of stupid men on Capitol Hill, who thought grateful peasants would lay flowers at the soldiers' feet. They paid with their minds and bodies and lives.
![[Mad]](angryfire.gif)
People break, even in everyday life. Track down the "Normal" episode of "Criminal Minds". It's about how someone without the usual background of deeply disturbed killer can become one, through absolutely no fault of their own.. You'll probably want a box of Kleenex.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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fluff
Shipmate
# 12871
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Posted
Whatever one thinks of war or peoples' reasons for becoming soldiers (and I myself am not quite a pacifist, therefore I accept the need for soldiers) - saying that some people with mental health problems should be treated and some people not, on the basis of a judgment we make about the illness's origin, is not morally acceptable.
Many conditions and illnesses may relate to decisions that the sufferers have taken in the past, but we still see those people as requiring help and compassion.
Or is the OP simply being provocative for the sake of it?
Posts: 109 | From: South England | Registered: Jul 2007
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by chive:
I think the division of people with mental illness into the 'deserving' and the 'underserving' is pernicious and wrong.
Even if we could make that division it doesn't make a difference.
Take a peacetime example: A person who steps into the road without looking and is hit by traffic does not deserve ant less treatment than someone who receives the same injuries from a car that drives down the pavement*. (* Uk usage = sidewalk in US.)
It is the same for mental disorders and it does not matter whether the person with the disorder is in the military or not. PTSD is a srious condition and needs treating, and any person with it need sympathy from the community.
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Last ever sig ...
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Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
I'd call you to Hell, but you're not worth it.
You are nothing but a complete arsehole.
I recognise the provocation, but this is unacceptable in Purgatory. Call him to Hell or not, but drop the personal insults here.
Barnabas62
Purgatory Host
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Oscar the Grouch
Adopted Cascadian
# 1916
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Posted
no prophet (certainly an apt name!)
As you are Canadian, can I point you in the direction of one of your own - Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire? I am currently reading his book Shake Hands with the Devil. I suggest you read it. There you will find a clear explanation of what led Dallaire to join the military forces in the first place (a sincere desire to be an active force to protect the vulnerable) and a shocking description of how he found himself leading the UN mission in Rwanda as the genocide started. He found himself powerless to halt the carnage; powerless to prevent men under his command being butchered; frustrated at being completely under-resourced; and utterly unable to make the politicians in the UN and the western nations take him seriously when he warned them about what was going to happen. Like many others he suffered deep PTSD and deserves our sympathy and admiration.
Before you make any more asinine statements, please read his book and reflect.
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Faradiu, dundeibáwa weyu lárigi weyu
Posts: 3871 | From: Gamma Quadrant, just to the left of Galifrey | Registered: Dec 2001
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
and they knew going in
Within those few words lie a vast universe of assumptions that I simply don't agree with.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
no_prophet
I made a very simplistic, black and white, harsh, sanctimoniously pious comment on the Pacifist thread which got the appropriate response – which of course was my intent, although I certainly won’t retract it and will answer for it.
Superficially – and that’s all there is at first in perception – it overlaps with yours.
It is emotionally, spiritually unintelligent.
It isn’t inclusive. It isn’t compassionate.
But like so many of our threads there is a terribly beautiful, human, synergistic gestalt about it.
Each thread is an entity.
Nobody signs up to kill children. Apart from the truly psychiatrically, helplessly, fecklessly, innocently aberrant. I’ve known two men who have in combat. One was my best friend for nearly ten years. After. After sharing that. After sharing that he watched his sons become the boys he killed. He drinks. He gets scarier and scarier with every pint. I was the only friend he could do that with. All the others were dead. The other guy was a really, really nice guy. Lovely dad, granddad, husband, neighbour, churchman, friend. What he did in Operation Claret makes the whole campaign as documented a lie. As given away by its name.
I have done (small beer, domestic, behind closed doors) evil that I am completely forgiven as if it never happened, as if I’m as white as snow. But I did it. And the effects will be with me and my other victims until I and they die. The effects go on and on in others’ lives and in mine. Every day. Every morning I wake up. Many times a day. I have intrusive thinking, rumination, guilt, shame, mainly inner Tourette’s and in fact mild PTSD. I’m a mild example and my friends are extreme examples of the human condition. Of witlessly turning ourselves in to victims by being victimizers by being … victims.
This week I’ve been doing battle with my ‘You fucking bastard’. By embracing him. Again. Which was a milestone when I realized it last year. But it’s not enough. Forgiveness isn’t enough. God’s or ones victims. Then I realised that my concept of forgiveness isn’t enough. Because the standard, usual Christian one isn’t. It just isn’t big enough. Implicit in forgiveness is the restitution of all things. That’s ALL things. At the beginning and throughout Judgement Day.
So let’s do that NOW. Let’s be the Kingdom NOW. Be the prodigal's father NOW, for ALL sons. Including our inner ones. That means ... yours.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Liopleurodon
Mighty sea creature
# 4836
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Posted
OP: the fact that many of the people disagreeing with you are actually pacifists themselves probably should tell you something. For my part, I have a great deal of sympathy for the regular troops, doing the best they can in difficult situations. My objections are against the international cock-waving contests that seem to lead to war in the first place, but those waving cocks are not normally the ones who get killed, and never have been.
In terms of why people enlist in the first place: for many people it's a very good chance of a proper career in a life with very few options. The US forces in particular tend to get people from depressed areas where the basic options are 1: perpetual unemployment and poverty, 2: crime or 3: join the army. I'm pretty sure that they're thinking "A career! An income! Personal development! Protecting people! Building relationships! Travelling the world! Help with college fees!" rather than "Yay! Time for a big murdery murderous rampage of lovely lovely murder!" If there are people in the latter camp, then the psychological assessments really should exclude them (they probably don't always - but they should).
[ 15. November 2013, 10:27: Message edited by: Liopleurodon ]
Posts: 1921 | From: Lurking under the ship | Registered: Aug 2003
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:
He found himself powerless to halt the carnage; powerless to prevent men under his command being butchered; frustrated at being completely under-resourced; and utterly unable to make the politicians in the UN and the western nations take him seriously when he warned them about what was going to happen.
This is true, but I think he was able to save some and restrain some violence, and I think Rwanda would have been even worse off without him. Hard as it may be to believe that were possible.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
I have read Romeo Dalaire's book. Still: you sign up for the military and you learn to kill, they suppress your normal instincts about life and death. Then you return with troubles. I get the case-by-case "this person is suffering right now" and it pulling at your heart strings. But that's the job. I don't support soldiers and I don't support war. I blame the soldiers for their problems. I'd be much more interested in the survivors of the families of civilians in the countries where they shot the place up.
My perspective is heavily influenced by my family history. My father's family fled Germany in 1938 only to have to flee Singapore in Jan 1942. All of his like-aged cousins were killed serving in the German army and he was in training as the war ended. Their families were carpet bombed and killed. One relative survived. WW1 killed all of my French ancestors. My mother's family fought for the other side, they lived. So did my inlaws' family. Soldiers are troubled. Misplaced empathy. I blame the soldiers for their troubles. A shameful thing to do, to be a soldier, and get over it. You brought it on yourselves.
Lyrics to Universal Soldier
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Tubbs
Miss Congeniality
# 440
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Posted
Sometimes only a Hell Call will do ...
[ETA: You're blaming the wrong people. No one in the armed forces decides where wars are fought. Want to get angry, get any with politicans who make those decisions. Particularly in wars that were fought by conscripts like WWI and WW2].
Tubbs
[ 15. November 2013, 12:24: Message edited by: Tubbs ]
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"It's better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than open it up and remove all doubt" - Dennis Thatcher. My blog. Decide for yourself which I am
Posts: 12701 | From: Someplace strange | Registered: Jun 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
For me, these things are empirical. I mean, that I may meet one soldier for whom I do have compassion; but another, maybe not. But this is true generally of people! So I can't generalize really, and I can't base compassion on general principles. It's concrete.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
What if I decided I had no sympathy for policemen injured in the course of duty? My moral standpoint and personal history makes me view police as the enemy of the working classes. They violently suppress legitimate protest and suppress workers rights.
They signed up to act as agents of capitalist society, and when they get injured they get what they deserved. I'm buggered if I'm going to help an injured copper.
Don't try and persuade me some of them are people too.
[ 15. November 2013, 12:14: Message edited by: mdijon ]
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
Whatever the rights and wrongs of being a military man or woman are, they are not sufficient to warrant contempt for injuries and illnesses they endure as a consequence of service.
Coming so soon after Remembrance/Veterans' Day makes the OP so despicable. I don't think Hell will allow me to express myself adequately.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
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Posted
I have to say, as someone with a pacifist father along with many German relatives on my mother's side who didn't make it through WW2 because they died on the "wrong side" at Stalingrad,etc., that I find NP's OP offensive and downright wrong.
My grandfather taught in a village school through the jingoistic years and on into WW1, and had to deal with the loss of so many of his students. My father taught all the way through WW2, and ditto. I now find myself in the position of attending Remembrance Day to hold the memory of 2 students who have died because of Afghanistan service, one because of skin cancer from too much sun exposure, the other by PTSD-related suicide. Neither of them shot anyone - the suicide was in a construction battalion, ffs - nor did any (that I know of*) others of the 30 or so who went there. They are all proud of having attempted to make a positive difference.
To insult all of these men and women in one rude paragraph is extremely blindly ignorant.
The fact that the person NP is rude about was a medic just adds to my disdain.
*The exception being the sniper, but a) he was doing the job he chose, b) he was completely in control at all times c) he was extremely selective about the target
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It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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bib
Shipmate
# 13074
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Posted
Anyone with mental health problems needs understanding and sympathy, soldiers included, but not more so than any other individual. We all face challenges in the careers we choose and some of us will be overcome by these challenges. Maybe there should be more stringent selection of people entering some professions.
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"My Lord, my Life, my Way, my End, accept the praise I bring"
Posts: 1307 | From: Australia | Registered: Oct 2007
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
That's what they signed up for. Did they think they'd enjoy killing and watching others kill their fellow soldiers? I blame soldiers for being soldiers. Just like I think we should hold everyone responsible for their conduct and life choices.
But you can't have it both ways. Soldiers are trained to kill soldiers. The soldiers they shoot at also, on your thinking, signed up to be shot at, and therefore the set of soldiers doing the shooting shouldn't feel guilty about it.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
Re the OP...
Words fail me.
![[Disappointed]](graemlins/disappointed.gif)
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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Erroneous Monk
Shipmate
# 10858
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Posted
As far as I'm concerned, "You chose to do X so don't come crying to me" is a shitty line to take with anyone in distress, no matter who they are or what they've done. But the idea of saying that to someone who's put themselves in harm's way for my sake is inconceivable.
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And I shot a man in Tesco, just to watch him die.
Posts: 2950 | From: I cannot tell you, for you are not a friar | Registered: Jan 2006
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
As far as I'm concerned, the calling to soldier is penultimate to turning it down.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
But the idea of saying that to someone who's put themselves in harm's way for my sake is inconceivable.
I'm not sure I hold with the "for my sake" part. Our corrupt leaders may have had many reasons for sending soldiers to kill and die in Afghanistan and Iraq, but I doubt the interests of their citizens even made the top 10. Oil, yes. Improved electoral prospects for themselves, yes. Halliburton profits, yes. The good of the people, no.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
I don't know. People make all sorts of crappy choices, for all sorts of crappy reasons.
Would no_prophet be talking about someone who chose to be a prostitute, in the same cavalier manner?
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Zach82
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# 3208
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Posted
If soldiers are wicked for soldiering, how much infinitely worse are the ones back home who benefit from their activities while looking down on the soldiers in judgment?
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
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Anglo Catholic Relict
Shipmate
# 17213
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by bib:
Anyone with mental health problems needs understanding and sympathy, soldiers included, but not more so than any other individual. We all face challenges in the careers we choose and some of us will be overcome by these challenges. Maybe there should be more stringent selection of people entering some professions.
PTSD is a normal response to abnormal stress. You cannot screen for it, because every single one of us is likely to develop this condition, were we to encounter appropriately appalling circumstances.
There is no person on earth who is immune to PTSD; it simply does not happen. The way to mitigate the effects is to offer appropriate support and counselling to those entering war zones or disaster zones as they work, to lessen the chances of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. By the time the PTSS developes into PTSD, it is much harder to undo the damage.
As for treating soldiers the same as others; that does not offer much hope in the UK at least. I have had PTSD since at least 1997, and am still waiting for the NHS to offer any treatment even remotely related to that. Actually, I am not waiting any more: I have given up hope.
I hope our soldiers are more fortunate, wherever they are.
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
If soldiers are wicked for soldiering, how much infinitely worse are the ones back home who benefit from their activities while looking down on the soldiers in judgment?
If there's anything that's guaranteed to make me feel a modicum of pity for no_prophet here, it's statements like this, which are, in their own inimitable way, as equally crass and pointless as the OP.
So well done, Zach. Good work.
[ 15. November 2013, 13:42: Message edited by: Doc Tor ]
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Can we put it into context?
PTSD has indeed in the criteria for the diagnosis a response to abnormal stress. But what is abnormal stress (horrifying, life threat etc) for the non-soldier is part and parcel of the soldiering trade. I know, for instance the for prison guards that it is considered by Workers' Compensation schemes that being threatened, physically attacked, physically restraining, and using guns is considered an integral part of the job. Thus problems arising from these activities are not considered unusual and compensable. Is it not true that killing, nearly being killed, being beside someone who is killed is integral to the job of soldier?
Life choices, are they not the responsibility of those who make them? I can certainly hear the stories of individuals who have witnessed or being part of causing death and horror. But this does not equate to thinking they did not have the larger part in bringing it upon themselves.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
If soldiers are wicked for soldiering, how much infinitely worse are the ones back home who benefit from their activities while looking down on the soldiers in judgment?
If there's anything that's guaranteed to make me feel a modicum of pity for no_prophet here, it's statements like this, which are, in their own inimitable way, as equally crass and pointless as the OP.
So well done, Zach. Good work.
Want to give engaging a try? What's so bad about recognizing the culpability of the whole nation for what happens to the soldiers?
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by iamchristianhearmeroar:
Even the ones who don't want them there?
I don't think Iraq should have been invaded, but I filled up my gas-tank anyway. Doesn't that make me culpable in the matter?
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
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iamchristianhearmeroar
Shipmate
# 15483
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Posted
Well, where did the gas come from? Did you vote for a party that approves of military action (in Iraq)? There are more pertinent considerations, to my mind, than simply being a citizen of a country which sends soldiers to war.
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My blog: http://alastairnewman.wordpress.com/
Posts: 642 | From: London, UK | Registered: Feb 2010
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
If soldiers are wicked for soldiering, how much infinitely worse are the ones back home who benefit from their activities while looking down on the soldiers in judgment?
If there's anything that's guaranteed to make me feel a modicum of pity for no_prophet here, it's statements like this, which are, in their own inimitable way, as equally crass and pointless as the OP.
So well done, Zach. Good work.
Want to give engaging a try? What's so bad about recognizing the culpability of the whole nation for what happens to the soldiers?
What's to engage with? Your pointless and pathetic comment that those who don't go out and kill are far, far worse than those who do? That's not recognising 'the culpability of a whole nation': that's simply fatuous hyperbole that even you at your worst don't believe.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Erroneous Monk
Shipmate
# 10858
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
But the idea of saying that to someone who's put themselves in harm's way for my sake is inconceivable.
I'm not sure I hold with the "for my sake" part. Our corrupt leaders may have had many reasons for sending soldiers to kill and die in Afghanistan and Iraq, but I doubt the interests of their citizens even made the top 10. Oil, yes. Improved electoral prospects for themselves, yes. Halliburton profits, yes. The good of the people, no.
I don't think any of the soldiers I've known have been motivated by wanting to get the government re-elected, or allegiance to big business. They're doing it as a public service. i.e. for me.
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And I shot a man in Tesco, just to watch him die.
Posts: 2950 | From: I cannot tell you, for you are not a friar | Registered: Jan 2006
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by iamchristianhearmeroar:
Well, where did the gas come from? Did you vote for a party that approves of military action (in Iraq)? There are more pertinent considerations, to my mind, than simply being a citizen of a country which sends soldiers to war.
One does not have to reach far in a Western Country to put one's hand on a product of injustice. Sure, some people are more culpable than others, but there is really no escape from participating in injustice.
So we have no ground to judge most soldiers—we're as invested as they are in the injustices carried out by military intervention. Which is why, in the spirit of communal repentance and healing, they do deserve support and sympathy.
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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Pre-cambrian
Shipmate
# 2055
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
PTSD has indeed in the criteria for the diagnosis a response to abnormal stress. But what is abnormal stress (horrifying, life threat etc) for the non-soldier is part and parcel of the soldiering trade. I know, for instance the for prison guards that it is considered by Workers' Compensation schemes that being threatened, physically attacked, physically restraining, and using guns is considered an integral part of the job. Thus problems arising from these activities are not considered unusual and compensable. Is it not true that killing, nearly being killed, being beside someone who is killed is integral to the job of soldier?
Exactly, it is an integral part of the job. According to your OP that means we owe them nothing, that no sympathy is due to them. So your response to a Prison Officer with PTSD is "fuck you, you should have taken a desk job". A firefighter must expect to come across burned corpses in the course of their job, so they can fuck off too. Ditto surgeons, after all it's their choice if they want to start cutting people up; they must know some won't come through the op.
[ 15. November 2013, 14:30: Message edited by: Pre-cambrian ]
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"We cannot leave the appointment of Bishops to the Holy Ghost, because no one is confident that the Holy Ghost would understand what makes a good Church of England bishop."
Posts: 2314 | From: Croydon | Registered: Dec 2001
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