The lyrics of the two songs merged, dear God.

Pages and pages and pages, of sorrow. When will it ever end?

Bleue, PTSD is a disease I believe can be healed (or at the very least managed), IF it's treated. Not enough attention, research and money is put into it. I hope that changes (and soon). There has to be more offered to the people who are coming home, and to their families. Being stationed in a war zone (not to mention having to actually kill people, and watch your friends die) is just too jarring of an experience. Hell, it took my dad almost 20 years to talk (and cry) about his war. He still startles awake if he hears a noise 40 years later. It's real. Even if people don't choose to acknowledge it (my dad doesn't), that doesn't mean that many people are not coming back with ptsd in milder forms. I think everyone should have to be treated. No exceptions, that is the only way the people who need to get help actually will.
Currently any mental disease (other than alcoholism) will pretty much ruin your career. That stigma needs to change, because it creates too much secrecy and encourages the spouses to hide and lie, too, after all it puts the entire family's security on the line if the husband gets kicked out, or gets stuck w/o promotions.

hey Janie Jane, I wanted to put up pictures of my kitty, but that will have to wait for another day. This has been rubbing at me all night. Thanks for reading!

I hadn't heard about those stories, and we should have. Locally, a town was planning a parade for a vet before he had time to get used to being home, so he took a gun to a bar and fired it in the parking lot. One guy got hit with asphalt blown up by the bullet hitting the ground. People went nuts about this soldier's ingratitude but luckily there were enough of us to redirect the conversation back to mental health issues. They cancelled the parade. And the vet spoke up, too, saying what we were saying. We need more dialogue and less denigration so these people can ask for help.

Now they're talking capital punishment for this soldier.

I feel like I know Sonny now...

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Phyllis- great example....."ingratitude" that they even thought that word about his behavior speaks volumes.... holy crap people.

Capital punishment? I don't know how I feel about that. Yes, he's insane, yes he was probably delusional when he did it. Do I think he has the potential to do it once he comes home- yeah, I do. Do I think he knows it's wrong, well, obviously he does now, he reported himself. I don't know what I want to happen to him (except it has to be done by the military)

Mainly I want the military to treat their soldiers before they kill children and wives. After they kill innocents, I'm not rooting for them so much. I know that kind of makes me a hypocrite, but that's how it washes out.

Thanks Algis

I feel like this guy is a golden opportunity to blow the lid off of the TBI & PTSD and all the crap that happens when we "insult" these people. If this guy gets written off as a nut job and executed then it will all die down and be swept under the rug again. We can't let that happen. And getting people to accept reality and destigmatize what's happening to these people will save a lot of lives.

what do you think should happen to him (to bring about the most good)

That was clever. Many links
I an hungry for vegan sausage
I agree with comment three

PTSD - It's a natural response
to being in an unusual/Evil -
or unnatural phenomena
which is outside the Realm of
Normal human Experiences -
`
I do declare Post Trauma . . .
The human can die premature.
I sometime use an analogy - war
It's a SHOCK!
It's may be like?
Never try this!
It's like sticking Ya penis (if a boy)
into a 220 - Volt!
I repeat - No try!
It's bigs - BOOM!
`
Never try at home.
The nerve/soma -
Bodies go\wacky.
`
I use to read academic journals ref: PTSD.
Charles R. Figley, Ph.D - Editor VA in DC.
He was excellent gathering this Research.
He'd ask those in Israel, Australia & Other
Worldwide . . .
I stopped . . .
I no read . . .
I No feed my PTSD. PTSD is Dangerous.
Who wouldn't get PTSD's - Symptoms?
Sociopaths (numb) in war 'get-off' killing.
Generals etc love war & a license to kill.
These generals and arm merchant? EVIL.
`
I got to the third comment and go on/on.
When I go to PA's Romeo's I wonder\You.
I think of `Juliet. You wear a same hat\too.
I forgot my brown sock hat in Little Italy\tho.
`
yo do `/ and`\ is rude?
I better go to NYC too?
Bellevue got room too?
We get room with view?

If we are determined to police the world the very least the minimum we should do is take care of the people who do the dirty work. These are our children for heavens sake!

All the damaged people...and the damage they do...

Wow, this mix of songs is pretty chilling. What a nightmare. Thanks for posting about this, Julie. You're right, one hardly hears about it on the news, not this.

Art's words sum it up so well,
PTSD - It's a natural response
to being in an unusual/Evil -
or unnatural phenomena
which is outside the Realm of
Normal human Experiences -

Good points Jules.
There does need to be more help for our vets-much more.

Brilliant and wrenching irony, your juxtaposition of the two.

a wire ...
of fire ...
so many fires ...
so many souls ... that bleed ...
a wire ...
of fire ...
where are ...
the doves ...
of peace ...
do we dare and ...
do we dare ...
how dare we not ...

What an artful dovetail of lyrics. And what Foolish Monkey said.

Thanks for reading this. It means alot to me.

This is incredibly powerful, Julie.

For this guy? Hospitalisation then incarcerated.

I heard later this morning that the hospital he was evaluated at and shipped out from is under indictment for misdiagnosing at least 2500 people. So now that roadblock to effective treatment for these soldiers has been pointed out. That is what I was feeling- the whole sham can be exposed now if we push hard enough.

Cleverly brings us our sad message, our angering non-response to our service people. Well done Jules.

Wow...very, very clever!
And so many resources for one to mull over--thanks for taking the time to track all that down and share it...

Oh Julie. Well done and very powerful idea combing those songs.~r

Brilliant, and I'm afraid far too fitting, given events of recent days

PTSD is treatable but I don't think there ever is a cure for a restless minds demonized with severe episodes of psychosis.

Those with brain disorders who've committed heinous acts of violence against others should be treated in hospitals for the criminally insane, and with the best psychiatric health care available to them. Tri-Care isn't working. Neither is the VA.

Very poignant.

PTSD can be treated. The military has been incredibly slow to acknowledge the harm done to our service members. After hundreds of years of war, we have learned little...

Such a powerful mix of songs! God forbid soldiers come back with any kind of "issues." Even now the John Wayne bullshit remains. Be tough, don't show "weakness," don't seek help. I remember guys coming back from Vietnam all screwed-up. Maybe they didn't kill their families or groups of civilians, but they beat their kids & tortured animals & treated women like garbage. I also know vets who came back with compassion & understanding & raised families & tried to make the world a better place.

I agree with you, everyone needs to be treated, as opposed to just hey-welcome-back-let's-go-get-a-beer. Being in a foreign country where people are trying to kill you & where you're supposed to kill them first -- not really normal, but that seems to be what our culture is telling us. Life as video game.

What chicken said.

powerful

PTSD. The DIS-ordering of a heretofore otherwise orderly mind.
Not so much a disease that develops like alcoholism or diabetes-
More like an injury-like traumatic brain injury.
Most like SHOCK injuries, such as Art James described.

The SHOCK of the traumatic stress actually FRIES part of your brain. Really, it does. And what’s left of your brain’s chemistry has to find a way to REWIRE itself AROUND the fried part. Not an easy task. In the meantime, during the re-routing process, you might cross a “live-wire,” a memory FLASHES back and you get stuck in it. You can’t get grounded in the reality of now. You are, in reality, STUCK in the past.

Or, if you don’t like that analogy-
The SHOCK alters the brain’s chemistry in such a way that the neuro-pathways are flooded by a kind of TOXICITY that erases significant amounts of the memory center and the rest of your brain can’t make “logical” sense of what’s left. So, you might be going along fine one minute but then you get to a BRIDGE that’s blown out that USED to HOLD the realization that what lies under the bridge is MEMORY –NOT A CURRENT THREAT-and the STRESS of that confusion triggers another flood that rises up and pulls you back down into the original trauma and yeah, you’re drowning in it.

And ALL OF THAT can play out over and over and over again from just ONE traumatic event. So, if you’re a boy coming home from a WAR ZONE, given that war IS hell, all of that ACCUMULATED TRAUMA gets played out over and over and over and over and over and over

AND WHEN YOU’RE NOT STUCK IN THAT HELL:

You simply do not recognize YOURSELF in YOUR OWN SKIN. You can see your skin in the mirror when you get up to brush your teeth to go about your everyday business but the person looking out your eyeballs is FUBAR. Scary that.

AND WHILE ALL OF THAT IS GOING ON-while you’re in the midst of LEARNING HOW to LIVE WITH the "disorder/disease/stigma …” How to manage ALL stress (good and bad) and prevent the flashpoints- ON TOP OF ALL THAT- you have to TRY and EDUCATE everybody else on the planet, or at least the ones you MUST interact with and THAT IS WHEN the real HOPELESSNESS sets in because people, by and large, even the ones who SHOULD BE the MOST SUPPORTIVE- DON’T GET IT.

And there’s NOTHING you can say or do to help them understand. You’re just stuck with it. Once you accept ALL OF THAT. You’re OK.
a lot of boys never get to the OK point. The government hides the numbers of people who end the war by suicide...

…which traumatizes a whole new set of people and none of that includes vicarious and secondary trauma. Not to mention, trauma-I don’t even remember the label for anymore.

Sorry for the rant. Hope it made SOME sense.
Also, I should confess I did not look at the links. I’ve seen enough.

Brilliant mashup on a terrible subject. My dad suffered PTSD -different war -and it gravely affected his life and mine in turn.

So sad. You did a beautiful job of merging the two songs. Rated.

Interesting mashup that says a lot. R.

Oh, those lyrics woven together...an intense read...the clips even more so.
One of my brother's came back from Vietnam with some serious issues. No help.
His life's trajectory changed forever...
This is so sad, Julie, and to think none of those stories are showing up on mainstream news at all, as far as I know...no wonder all we hear about is 'the candidates.'
Every important issue seems to be suppressed.

"His life's trajectory changed forever..." I think that is it for me exactly JT. So many mental diseases are an internal chemical imbalance. This disease is external (at first), in theory the body should be able to be brought back into homeostasis since the damage is not an inherent genetic chemical imbalance, but a physiological reaction to stimuli.
I hope, anyway.
that and all the silence makes me angry. I know there will never be a Dependents march, or uprising due to how we are indoctrinated (I would have never of written of this if my dad was still in the service, it could have hurt his career, or embarrassed him with his peers...you just don't do that in the military) I wish a group of ex-dependents would get together and yell though. It's going to be hell for the spouses and kids when these soldiers get home...and you won't hear a peep, not from the news or them.