PTSD 101

[Sparrowhawk]

http://vietnamdiary.bizland.com/cookpoems.jpg


"No one who, conjures up the most evil of those halftamed demons that inhabit the human beast, and seeks to wrestle with them,
can expect to come through the struggle unscathed." Sigmund Freud




PTSD ~ Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
What is it really?

[Sgt Sostand]

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
What is it really? to me is like the war have never end some thing bring it back like gun powder burning but i have learn to deal with it but i am always on the edge

[Phantom Blooper]

The First Part of Henry the Fourth
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Shakespeare
The First Part of Henry the Fourth


ACT II, SCENE 4
Enter His Lady
How now, Kate! I must leave you within these two hours.

LADY PERCY


O, my good lord, why are you thus alone? 35
For what offence have I this fortnight been
A banish'd woman from my Harry's bed?
Tell me, sweet lord, what is't that takes from thee
Thy stomach, pleasure and thy golden sleep?
Why dost thou bend thine eyes upon the earth, 40
And start so often when thou sit'st alone?
Why hast thou lost the fresh blood in thy cheeks;
And given my treasures and my rights of thee
To thick-eyed musing and cursed melancholy?
In thy faint slumbers I by thee have watch'd, 45
And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars;
Speak terms of manage to thy bounding steed;
Cry 'Courage! to the field!' And thou hast talk'd
Of sallies and retires, of trenches, tents,
Of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets, 50
Of basilisks, of cannon, culverin,
Of prisoners' ransom and of soldiers slain,
And all the currents of a heady fight.
Thy spirit within thee hath been so at war
And thus hath so bestirr'd thee in thy sleep, 55
That beads of sweat have stood upon thy brow
Like bubbles in a late-disturbed stream;
And in thy face strange motions have appear'd,
Such as we see when men restrain their breath
On some great sudden hest. O, what portents are these? 60
Some heavy business hath my lord in hand,
And I must know it, else he loves me not.

[Sparrowhawk]

how they remind me of decaying plants in the jungle, in the bushes, near the muddy rivers of Quam Nam Province

[greensideout]

The gripping fear---the trained response. It was not ourself but instead, what we were molded into being---we no longer reacted in a sane manner---we reacted as disciplined Marines.

[thedrifter]

Not all combat casualties appear on the battlefield, nor are all battle scars visible.


Sempers,

Roger
:marine:

[NEWB]

It is the images that come in the nite when you are asleep. It is as if you are there and you wake in a cold sweat. It is the gnawing at your subconscience all the years later......wondering if you gave the right command and if you could have done something different.

[CAS3]

For me, It is the veteran in my office, the one with a disability that I can help. The guy with nightmares because he sees his bodies who are long gone who doesn't know where to turn. The nurse with intimacy issues because of a rape that didn't know she has someone to talk to that can relate.
I really do feel for the Vietnam Era veterans and now, for all of the new veterans that come in and have no idea what the disability is. I am only 33 and I have witnessed men breaking down, crying, yelling and screaming. It is a God Aweful disease that tears a person apart from the inside out.
My thoughts and prayers are with you. I only wish I could do more.

[Sparrowhawk]

Originally posted by NEWB
It is the images that come in the nite when you are asleep. It is as if you are there and you wake in a cold sweat. It is the gnawing at your subconscience all the years later......wondering if you gave the right command and if you could have done something different.

You are so right....



The Poems of War



http://vietnamdiary.bizland.com/PoemsofWar.chtml


Yesterday, after a shower, I reached down to dry myself with a towel. The towel was clean but it had a smell to it.

The towel had been washed but it had sat overnight in the dryer and then at mid afternoon the towels were placed in the dryer, dried, folded and put away.

I didn't like the smell and felt I had to take another quick shower to get that smell the towel had left off me. Still, I didn't understand why. I used a differnt towel from a different pile to dry myself. but, for the rest of the day, something was bothering me, the nice day had turned into a gray day, and my mood had changed. I hate those times, when I don't understand why.


Finally I realized "the smell of the towel," the smell like the smell of dry sweat on a towel we used to wrap around our necks as we went out on patrol. That smell was there, we got used to it and we used them to dry our sweat when on patrol in the jungles, across rice paddies, after firefights, the smell of sweat that poured out of us with the heat, and the pain and the suffering. It was there embedded into those towels, we wrapped around our necks.

PTSD lesson we are never told about, like dreams in the night, but then again that's a different subject... with the same shadow at our side.

SF

Marines

[thedrifter]

I too Cas Thank You for All Your Hard Work.......



The look in a man’s eyes was often used to describe the change in him after witnessing or performing a killing that was so horrendous the soldier only remembers it in his dreams. "It was the eyes: because they never had anything to do with what the rest of the face was doing, and it give everyone the look of extreme fatigue or even a glancing madness,".

The eyes, the "look," the walk, expose the soldier’s pain for the rest of us to see, but it is the nightmares that keep you awake and afraid. "And the next morning," always waken from these dreams in the full, warm light of day ... the dead, the ghosts who haunt him -- long gone.


Sempers,

Roger
:marine:

[Phantom Blooper]

AGAINST THE HEART

Here I sit twenty years later still asking myself , Why….
Just knowing one thing for sure,War....


It pains my heart and tortures my mind
When I think of my role,
Or the pain
Suffered by so many……

For in war there really is no good or bad,
No heroes,
Just survivors,
And still the haunting question of, Why…..

The nightmares,
Waking up between soaked sheets,
Yelling orders,
With only the shocked face of my wife to hear,
And then the fear of sleep itself…….


For I’ve seen enough played over and over,
Night after night,
All because I was born to care for people,
Not kill them….

There’s no where to run,
Because now the battle is within my mind

A battle for my life……..

Arthur R. Brammer

[greensideout]

In the mid-sixtie's I stopped at a store in Martin City, a small town south of Kansas City, Mo. after work.

I noticed a young man there wearing a field jacket and SF Beret. I thought it was some punk acting as if he were in the military, so I questioned him on why he was wearing the beret.

He began to speak and I could tell that he was having trouble forming words. He began telling his story of how the VC had nailed his baret to his head. He took it off to show me the nail holes. They were about 2" apart and all the way around in the frayed cover. I looked up and saw matching scares around his head. Tears came to my eyes for this Green Beret.

He then returned to walking slowly along without a cart, looking at the food on the shelves.

Whenever I'm feeling low, I remember him and count my blessings. His dream of life had ended in a sorry place in nam.

[shoreparty]

you can take a wild animal and make him tame,but then it is always a animal! then you take a young tame at heart boy and make him a animal,he will always be one>? SEMPER FI,GOD BLESS YOU ALL,WE SHALL NEVER FORGET!! VIETNAM 1967/68,DONG HA,AND KHE SAHN

[NEWB]

CAS:
I too want to say "Thank You", for if it were not for people like you who actually do try to help those of us who carry this burden. And also to all here at Leatherneck, who have the same feelings and knowledge to help us who need it.

[Phantom Blooper]

God’s Lent Child

“I’ll lend you for a little while
A child of mine,” God said
“for you to love the while he lives,
And mourn for when he’s dead.
It may be six or seven years
Or forty two or three.
But will you, till I call him back,
Take care of him for me?

He’ll bring his charms to gladden you
And – should his stay be brief –
You’ll have his lovely memories
As a solace for your grief.

I cannot promise he will stay,
Since all from earth returns;
But there are lessons taught below
I want this child to learn.
I’ve looked the whole world over
In my search for teachers true
And from the things that crowd life’s lane
I have chosen you.

Now will you give him all your love?
Not think the labor vain?
Nor hate me when I come to take
This Lent Child back again?”

“I fancied that I heard them say –
“Dear Lord, Thy will be done
For all the joys Thy Child will bring
The risk of grief we’ll run.
We will shelter him with tenderness,
We’ll love him while we may
And for the happiness we’ve known
Forever grateful stay.

But should Thy angel call for him,
Much sooner than we’ve planned,
We’ll brave the bitter grief that comes
And try to understand.”

- Author Unknown-


In war, there are no unwounded soldiers. Jose' Narosky-