Almost half of new [US] vets seek disability

[Ibrahim]

Presumably the US veterans committing suicide on a daily basis aren't in on the joke.

[monster_gardener]

Thank you Very Much for the Thread, Typhoon....

Hmmmmmnnnnnnnnnn........

Wondering if Jihadi warriors have problems with Post Traumatic Distress Syndrome etc And/Or Any uncertainty or biting of conscience........

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posttrauma ... s_disorder

Anyone know?..............

Or is the Malignant Meme of Islam so powerful that they are invincibly convinced that Allah is on their side and what they do is right that they are effectively religious fanatic sociopaths......... or worse.....

AIUI the ancient Assassins were that way........

[Typhoon]

Thank you Very Much for the Thread, Typhoon....

Hmmmmmnnnnnnnnnn........

Wondering if Jihadi warriors have problems with Post Traumatic Distress Syndrome etc And/Or Any uncertainty or biting of conscience........

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posttrauma ... s_disorder

Anyone know?..............

Or is the Malignant Meme of Islam so powerful that they are invincibly convinced that Allah is on their side and what they do is right that they are effectively religious fanatic sociopaths......... or worse.....

AIUI the ancient Assassins were that way........

I'm tempted to start a thread on the history of underwear in Uruguay just to see how long it takes you to find a way to relate it to a blanket condemnation of Islam.

Anways, it's their country that is being occupied and their families that are being killed. The best of motivation.

If one believes that one is fighting for an existential reason, rather providing cannon fodder for platitudes and profit, then dealing with the after effects is also probably easier.

[Juggernaut Nihilism]

Presumably the US veterans committing suicide on a daily basis aren't in on the joke.

What is the point of this post? The rise in claims is due to two prolonged wars as well as the cultural change I described. Otherwise explain the dramatic rise in claims among air force and navy personnel who have never been near combat.

[cincinnatus]

Presumably the US veterans committing suicide on a daily basis aren't in on the joke.

What is the point of this post? The rise in claims is due to two prolonged wars as well as the cultural change I described. Otherwise explain the dramatic rise in claims among air force and navy personnel who have never been near combat.

You're not exactly wrong about certain folks gaming the system (especially with things like sleep apnea covered as a disability) to get some form of a disability check and punching out while they're still young enough to start in the private sector. But, I've known entire platoons of Army infantry who have never been shot at or fired a shot in combat, yet the FOBITs and REMFs at the FOBs and hub bases have taken casualties from golden beebee indirect fire (rockets usually, also mortars). Those at the FOB include multi-service, especially in certain specialties in which the Army is chronically undermanned such as intelligence, EOD and linguists, or at hub bases with major AF or Navy presence. I can't speak to the Marines though.

[Ibrahim]

Presumably the US veterans committing suicide on a daily basis aren't in on the joke.

What is the point of this post?

You were going on about some vets scamming VA benefits and laughing about it. I'm guessing the vets killing themselves are not laughing.


Nice to know that the US military and taxpayers are getting it from both ends, though. Some kid getting put on a three month waiting list to see a shrink and killing himself, while another guy laughs as he rips off the government with a false claim.

[Ibrahim]

Presumably the US veterans committing suicide on a daily basis aren't in on the joke.

What is the point of this post? The rise in claims is due to two prolonged wars as well as the cultural change I described. Otherwise explain the dramatic rise in claims among air force and navy personnel who have never been near combat.

You're not exactly wrong about certain folks gaming the system (especially with things like sleep apnea covered as a disability) to get some form of a disability check and punching out while they're still young enough to start in the private sector. But, I've known entire platoons of Army infantry who have never been shot at or fired a shot in combat, yet the FOBITs and REMFs at the FOBs and hub bases have taken casualties from golden beebee indirect fire (rockets usually, also mortars). Those at the FOB include multi-service, especially in certain specialties in which the Army is chronically undermanned such as intelligence, EOD and linguists, or at hub bases with major AF or Navy presence. I can't speak to the Marines though.

The drones are operated by Air Force guys, right? Do any of them wig out from killing people via remote control all day? Serious question.

[Mr. Perfect]

Presumably the US veterans committing suicide on a daily basis aren't in on the joke.

What is the point of this post?

You were going on about some vets scamming VA benefits and laughing about it. I'm guessing the vets killing themselves are not laughing.


Nice to know that the US military and taxpayers are getting it from both ends, though. Some kid getting put on a three month waiting list to see a shrink and killing himself, while another guy laughs as he rips off the government with a false claim.

The nature of government medicine. And to be fair, government benefits in general.

[Demon of Undoing]

Presumably the US veterans committing suicide on a daily basis aren't in on the joke.

What is the point of this post? The rise in claims is due to two prolonged wars as well as the cultural change I described. Otherwise explain the dramatic rise in claims among air force and navy personnel who have never been near combat.

You're not exactly wrong about certain folks gaming the system (especially with things like sleep apnea covered as a disability) to get some form of a disability check and punching out while they're still young enough to start in the private sector. But, I've known entire platoons of Army infantry who have never been shot at or fired a shot in combat, yet the FOBITs and REMFs at the FOBs and hub bases have taken casualties from golden beebee indirect fire (rockets usually, also mortars). Those at the FOB include multi-service, especially in certain specialties in which the Army is chronically undermanned such as intelligence, EOD and linguists, or at hub bases with major AF or Navy presence. I can't speak to the Marines though.

The drones are operated by Air Force guys, right? Do any of them wig out from killing people via remote control all day? Serious question.

Can't speak to the universality of it, but I know a guy that watched a bomb go into a window that he plotted. He wrote out the whole mission- CAP, communications, refueling, nav, all of it ( Marines, Bosnia- why have a staff when one NCO can do everything?).

They had eyes on the target and a time down to the second when the bomb would hit. On the video, they could see the lased target and every living thing in the area ( FLIR). As bomb release happened, a truck drove up. Fall time was something less than a minute ( squirrel cage- type loft). Ad the two- thousand pounder fell, the guys got out of the truck, about six of them, and walked in the door next to the window the 'hairs were on. Just about the time the door closed, in came hell, and that was it. It was filmed with black- hot so the screen disappeared in a dark cloud, and that was the end of the tape.

Now, this guy was a Marine. They are told that blood makes the grass grow, and this particular guy is not known for a bleeding heart. But something about the fact that the op was so sterile, that the plan had been down to the second in the middle of the night, and yet still people got killed, it hit him. Admittedly, Serbs and the ostensible enemy, no real boo hoos were had. And yet there was a reality of ending a half dozen livesthat intruded past the cathode ray tubes and hit him. Now, this is a guy that did people with knives before he signed up- hard, man, and I mean it. But that fucked him up a bit. Maybe it was just too easy.

He got by. So far. I fear for his senescence, however.

[Juggernaut Nihilism]

I read an interview with a drone pilot working in Nevada where he mentioned the disconnect that occurs when you watch American soldiers die in real time during the day, then go to a PTA meeting in the evening.

[Typhoon]

I read an interview with a drone pilot working in Nevada where he mentioned the disconnect that occurs when you watch American soldiers die in real time during the day, then go to a PTA meeting in the evening.

That addresses the "how", but studiously avoids the "why?".

[Juggernaut Nihilism]

Can't speak to the universality of it, but I know a guy that watched a bomb go into a window that he plotted. He wrote out the whole mission- CAP, communications, refueling, nav, all of it ( Marines, Bosnia- why have a staff when one NCO can do everything?).

They had eyes on the target and a time down to the second when the bomb would hit. On the video, they could see the lased target and every living thing in the area ( FLIR). As bomb release happened, a truck drove up. Fall time was something less than a minute ( squirrel cage- type loft). Ad the two- thousand pounder fell, the guys got out of the truck, about six of them, and walked in the door next to the window the 'hairs were on. Just about the time the door closed, in came hell, and that was it. It was filmed with black- hot so the screen disappeared in a dark cloud, and that was the end of the tape.

Now, this guy was a Marine. They are told that blood makes the grass grow, and this particular guy is not known for a bleeding heart. But something about the fact that the op was so sterile, that the plan had been down to the second in the middle of the night, and yet still people got killed, it hit him. Admittedly, Serbs and the ostensible enemy, no real boo hoos were had. And yet there was a reality of ending a half dozen livesthat intruded past the cathode ray tubes and hit him. Now, this is a guy that did people with knives before he signed up- hard, man, and I mean it. But that fucked him up a bit. Maybe it was just too easy.

He got by. So far. I fear for his senescence, however.

There's some Ernst Junger in here. The idea of a war so mechanized that the involved people are almost in the way. No swords through the belly, just mangled masses of metal with chunks of meat no longer recognizable as human. No more warriors, but "operators".

[Ibrahim]

Presumably the US veterans committing suicide on a daily basis aren't in on the joke.

What is the point of this post? The rise in claims is due to two prolonged wars as well as the cultural change I described. Otherwise explain the dramatic rise in claims among air force and navy personnel who have never been near combat.

You're not exactly wrong about certain folks gaming the system (especially with things like sleep apnea covered as a disability) to get some form of a disability check and punching out while they're still young enough to start in the private sector. But, I've known entire platoons of Army infantry who have never been shot at or fired a shot in combat, yet the FOBITs and REMFs at the FOBs and hub bases have taken casualties from golden beebee indirect fire (rockets usually, also mortars). Those at the FOB include multi-service, especially in certain specialties in which the Army is chronically undermanned such as intelligence, EOD and linguists, or at hub bases with major AF or Navy presence. I can't speak to the Marines though.

The drones are operated by Air Force guys, right? Do any of them wig out from killing people via remote control all day? Serious question.

Can't speak to the universality of it, but I know a guy that watched a bomb go into a window that he plotted. He wrote out the whole mission- CAP, communications, refueling, nav, all of it ( Marines, Bosnia- why have a staff when one NCO can do everything?).

They had eyes on the target and a time down to the second when the bomb would hit. On the video, they could see the lased target and every living thing in the area ( FLIR). As bomb release happened, a truck drove up. Fall time was something less than a minute ( squirrel cage- type loft). Ad the two- thousand pounder fell, the guys got out of the truck, about six of them, and walked in the door next to the window the 'hairs were on. Just about the time the door closed, in came hell, and that was it. It was filmed with black- hot so the screen disappeared in a dark cloud, and that was the end of the tape.

Now, this guy was a Marine. They are told that blood makes the grass grow, and this particular guy is not known for a bleeding heart. But something about the fact that the op was so sterile, that the plan had been down to the second in the middle of the night, and yet still people got killed, it hit him. Admittedly, Serbs and the ostensible enemy, no real boo hoos were had. And yet there was a reality of ending a half dozen livesthat intruded past the cathode ray tubes and hit him. Now, this is a guy that did people with knives before he signed up- hard, man, and I mean it. But that fucked him up a bit. Maybe it was just too easy.

He got by. So far. I fear for his senescence, however.

What's interesting to me as an amateur historian is how unprecedented this capability is. All cultures have some kind of "warrior ethos," and they have all been pretty similar back to the dawn of history. There are cultural differences of course, but some constants we can see from clashing sheildwalls to Crusaders and Mamelukes, to Redcoats and Highlanders, to WW2 firefights and USSF vs. al Qaeda lifers in Tora Bora. Even though advantages can vary widely from time to time, both parties exposed themselves to at least some degree of danger. The whole concept of "courage" and being a "warrior" or a "soldier" are based around this, and these are still described as virtues by all military organizations.

But this new capability, to kill people without the slightest danger to yourself and watch it happen, I think this is something that could be deleterious to the soul in any number of ways. Maybe some people would love it and get addicted to it, others not react at all, and others be repulsed by it. It wouldn't surprise me if somebody who adopted and was made part of a "warrior culture" actually preferred to kill people with a knife.

And as critical as I can be of soliders, imagine if they take them out of the loop! Put the kill switch right in the politicians; hands and you'd probably see less restraint than you do now (which is not much).


Back to the OP, all of this is making me think that psychiatrists treating combat veterans (also police/firefighters/EMTs) should really be an even more specialized discipline than it already is. I bet you the most successful and effective doctor treating veterans and PTSD cases in America is himself a 'Nam vet or something similar.

[cincinnatus]

I'm not in that community on either the ops-end (Nevada folks and forward deployed) or with the sensor-end (DGS in multiple locations). The folks I've interacted with seem segmented by the fact the folks doing "call-outs" from the sensors to the pilot/shooters in another place. It's a weird compartmentalization thing I guess.

FWIW, pilots almost universally despise "RPA" duty. It's the equivalent of desk-work to a detective who vastly ties his self-worth to being out on the street being a cop.

[Juggernaut Nihilism]

Given the post-Vietnam understanding of the effects of traumatic stress, where do you even start to begin the healing process in societies where extreme PTSD is the norm? We now take seriously the fact that a person can be seriously affected by spending a year in a combat zone with elevated levels of anxiety, even if he never actually saw combat himself. Where do you even start in places where the average person has witnessed or experienced extreme brutality? Thinking about it is saddening and disheartening.

I heard an interview with some aid worker on NPR awhile back, and she was talking about how she would visit certain villages in African war zones where literally every single female had been gang raped multiple times, many of them first experiencing it as children. Given the lifelong effects of a single incident of molestation on a person, psychiatry must be woefully unable to even address such mass trauma. I think people assume that sufferers in other societies are somehow less sensitive than Westerners, that the pain of the African child soldier forced to club his parents to death is somehow on par with that of an upper-class American girl who thinks her boobs are too small. I think people unconsciously assume that the African kid is somehow less introspective about it, experiencing it all a little more dimly, not quite an animal but closer to that than the subject of a Phillip Roth novel.

I don't know... maybe it's just a natural defense. If we were actually aware, on a regular basis, that there are millions of people just like ourselves being tortured and raped, and that it hurts them just as much as it would hurt us, we would probably lose our minds.

[Enki]

Given the post-Vietnam understanding of the effects of traumatic stress, where do you even start to begin the healing process in societies where extreme PTSD is the norm? We now take seriously the fact that a person can be seriously affected by spending a year in a combat zone with elevated levels of anxiety, even if he never actually saw combat himself. Where do you even start in places where the average person has witnessed or experienced extreme brutality? Thinking about it is saddening and disheartening.

I heard an interview with some aid worker on NPR awhile back, and she was talking about how she would visit certain villages in African war zones where literally every single female had been gang raped multiple times, many of them first experiencing it as children. Given the lifelong effects of a single incident of molestation on a person, psychiatry must be woefully unable to even address such mass trauma. I think people assume that sufferers in other societies are somehow less sensitive than Westerners, that the pain of the African child soldier forced to club his parents to death is somehow on par with that of an upper-class American girl who thinks her boobs are too small. I think people unconsciously assume that the African kid is somehow less introspective about it, experiencing it all a little more dimly, not quite an animal but closer to that than the subject of a Phillip Roth novel.

I don't know... maybe it's just a natural defense. If we were actually aware, on a regular basis, that there are millions of people just like ourselves being tortured and raped, and that it hurts them just as much as it would hurt us, we would probably lose our minds.

I think it's just different types of existential horror. Here the notion that our emotions and our feelings aren't as substantial and meaningful as someone who has been gang-raped multiple times or who has clubbed their own parents to death, is part of the whole 'machine' narrative that assaults us. We are cogs in a machine, and we should be comfortable with our place in the machine. Don't question anything, don't transgress, be happy with the machine, it's what separates you from the natural savagery of your species, slave.

I don't think we give enough thought to how genuflecting horrifying it is that young women are traumatized by something as inconsequential as their boobs being too small. What's horrifying about it, is not that their boobs are too small, but that they live in a society where that is a source of horror for them.

[Juggernaut Nihilism]

I don't think we give enough thought to how genuflecting horrifying it is that young women are traumatized by something as inconsequential as their boobs being too small. What's horrifying about it, is not that their boobs are too small, but that they live in a society where that is a source of horror for them.

There may be something to the idea that the human mind tends to magnify trifles to fill the mind, and to shrink down larger things to a manageable size.

[Ibrahim]

People are effected by whatever context they find themselves in. Middle class consumers are effected by what and how body image is marketed to them, the elderly are effect by isolation and neglect, children are effected by abuse, soldiers re effected by PTSD, everybody is effected by substance addiction, etc. Somebody who commits suicide over not looking like a model is the same as somebody who kills themselves due to PTSD. Certainly the results are the same.


Psychological conditions like depression are chemical, not moral. Telling some teen to suck it up and not be a pussy is, coincidentally, how the symptoms of PTSD were treated by the military until the late 20th century.

[Juggernaut Nihilism]

People are effected by whatever context they find themselves in. Middle class consumers are effected by what and how body image is marketed to them, the elderly are effect by isolation and neglect, children are effected by abuse, soldiers re effected by PTSD, everybody is effected by substance addiction, etc. Somebody who commits suicide over not looking like a model is the same as somebody who kills themselves due to PTSD. Certainly the results are the same.


Psychological conditions like depression are chemical, not moral. Telling some teen to suck it up and not be a pussy is, coincidentally, how the symptoms of PTSD were treated by the military until the late 20th century.

Still, I think a lot of people in Western countries use this line of thinking to shield themselves from the real horror going on in the world. Telling yourself that the difference between your unsatisfied desire for a new flat screen and a Somali child's unsatisfied desire for food are really just a matter of context is an easy way to justify self-absorption. Not just individually, but socially: we can tell ourselves that devoting resources solving the myriad problems of the super-rich is just as important as solving the problems of the poor. Not saying your wrong, though: I don't doubt that, subjectively, suffering is just as deep, regardless of external circumstances.

[Ibrahim]

People are effected by whatever context they find themselves in. Middle class consumers are effected by what and how body image is marketed to them, the elderly are effect by isolation and neglect, children are effected by abuse, soldiers re effected by PTSD, everybody is effected by substance addiction, etc. Somebody who commits suicide over not looking like a model is the same as somebody who kills themselves due to PTSD. Certainly the results are the same.


Psychological conditions like depression are chemical, not moral. Telling some teen to suck it up and not be a pussy is, coincidentally, how the symptoms of PTSD were treated by the military until the late 20th century.

Still, I think a lot of people in Western countries use this line of thinking to shield themselves from the real horror going on in the world. Telling yourself that the difference between your unsatisfied desire for a new flat screen and a Somali child's unsatisfied desire for food are really just a matter of context is an easy way to justify self-absorption.

You are introducing intentionality where none exists. A clinically depressed person is suffering from a neurological chemical imbalance (hence the imperfect therapeutic effects of antidepressant medication). It doesn't matter what their intentions are.

This is borne out by the fact that many people suffer from e.g. clinical depression for no discernible external reason, and also that other people experience "real horror" and do not suffer psychological consequences. Differences in context would only alter the methods used in therapy, which is why veterans might be better at working with other veterans. Excluding medications, as context doesn't matter to them.


I would also observe that people are exposed to horrific news and images to a greater degree than at any time in history, and are largely uninterested. Artistic or athletic recreations of violence and horror are actively sought out.

[monster_gardener]

Thank you Very Much for the Thread, Typhoon....

Hmmmmmnnnnnnnnnn........

Wondering if Jihadi warriors have problems with Post Traumatic Distress Syndrome etc And/Or Any uncertainty or biting of conscience........

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posttrauma ... s_disorder

Anyone know?..............

Or is the Malignant Meme of Islam so powerful that they are invincibly convinced that Allah is on their side and what they do is right that they are effectively religious fanatic sociopaths......... or worse.....

AIUI the ancient Assassins were that way........

I'm tempted to start a thread on the history of underwear in Uruguay just to see how long it takes you to find a way to relate it to a blanket condemnation of Islam.

Anways, it's their country that is being occupied and their families that are being killed. The best of motivation.

If one believes that one is fighting for an existential reason, rather providing cannon fodder for platitudes and profit, then dealing with the after effects is also probably easier.

Thank you VERY Much for your Reply, Typhoon.

I'm tempted to start a thread on the history of underwear in Uruguay just to see how long it takes you to find a way to relate it to a blanket condemnation of Islam.

That could be hard.......... But thank you for your confidence in me ........... Perhaps we should try it as an experiment...

But I note you said "blanket condemnation".... That could make it harder.......

Underwear..... Uruguay......... Blanket.....Rio de La Plata lots of water........Washing... Laundry... Dirty Laundry........ Islam has plenty of that ...........
Condemnation Con Dam Nation That' s the Ummah for you....... Brotherhood of thieves and pirates....... land and sea..........

WAIT! Maybe I can do it right here

And save you the trouble of starting a thread

It is alternately slightly sad and extremely wonderful that Islam has been a "wet blanket" on the advancement of science in Islamic lands since Al-Ghazali* in "Incoherence of the Philosophers" tried to make Allah, supreme but instead converted Allah a Maxwell Demon who burns cotton when a match is put next to it!

our opponent claims that the agent of the burning is the fire exclusively;’ this is a natural, not a voluntary agent, and cannot abstain from what is in its nature when it is brought into contact with a receptive substratum. This we deny, saying: The agent of the burning is God, through His creating the black in the cotton and the disconnexion of its parts, and it is God who made the cotton burn and made it ashes either through the intermediation of angels or without intermediation. For fire is a dead body which has no action, and what is the proof that it is the agent? Indeed, the philosophers have no other proof than the observation of the occurrence of the burning, when there is contact with fire, but observation proves only a simultaneity, not a causation, and, in reality, there is no other cause but God.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incoherenc ... ers#Legacy

Sad in theory but wonderful in practice because otherwise the Malignant Muslim Meme might have come closer to conquering the world......

There you have it ad libing from Underwear in Uruguay to a wet "blanket condemnation" of Islam for putting out the light of science... for themselves........

And right glad I am that they did......

*When the creep wasn't off raiding infidels...... Said it should be done at least once a year.......

Which bring us back to the original question...........

Your contention about the Dogs of Afghan considering themselves to be defensive is plausible.........

In what passes for their minds, we infidels should have just never minded about Osama and the WTC on September 11........ and their betrayal of Uz their benefactors against the Russians.... It was what we deserved for not continuing to had over the jizya

But that does not answer the question whether or not of whether or not religious fanatic Jihadi creeps like Ghazaii get PSD after they on on their yearly vacations raiding/hunting Infidels.....

Maybe they don't.......... Religious fanaticism may approximate booze in deadening conscience.................

But I hope they do .............

Get PSD...............








*

[monster_gardener]

Presumably the US veterans committing suicide on a daily basis aren't in on the joke.

What is the point of this post? The rise in claims is due to two prolonged wars as well as the cultural change I described. Otherwise explain the dramatic rise in claims among air force and navy personnel who have never been near combat.

You're not exactly wrong about certain folks gaming the system (especially with things like sleep apnea covered as a disability) to get some form of a disability check and punching out while they're still young enough to start in the private sector. But, I've known entire platoons of Army infantry who have never been shot at or fired a shot in combat, yet the FOBITs and REMFs at the FOBs and hub bases have taken casualties from golden beebee indirect fire (rockets usually, also mortars). Those at the FOB include multi-service, especially in certain specialties in which the Army is chronically undermanned such as intelligence, EOD and linguists, or at hub bases with major AF or Navy presence. I can't speak to the Marines though.

The drones are operated by Air Force guys, right? Do any of them wig out from killing people via remote control all day? Serious question.

Can't speak to the universality of it, but I know a guy that watched a bomb go into a window that he plotted. He wrote out the whole mission- CAP, communications, refueling, nav, all of it ( Marines, Bosnia- why have a staff when one NCO can do everything?).

They had eyes on the target and a time down to the second when the bomb would hit. On the video, they could see the lased target and every living thing in the area ( FLIR). As bomb release happened, a truck drove up. Fall time was something less than a minute ( squirrel cage- type loft). Ad the two- thousand pounder fell, the guys got out of the truck, about six of them, and walked in the door next to the window the 'hairs were on. Just about the time the door closed, in came hell, and that was it. It was filmed with black- hot so the screen disappeared in a dark cloud, and that was the end of the tape.

Now, this guy was a Marine. They are told that blood makes the grass grow, and this particular guy is not known for a bleeding heart. But something about the fact that the op was so sterile, that the plan had been down to the second in the middle of the night, and yet still people got killed, it hit him. Admittedly, Serbs and the ostensible enemy, no real boo hoos were had. And yet there was a reality of ending a half dozen livesthat intruded past the cathode ray tubes and hit him. Now, this is a guy that did people with knives before he signed up- hard, man, and I mean it. But that fucked him up a bit. Maybe it was just too easy.

He got by. So far. I fear for his senescence, however.

What's interesting to me as an amateur historian is how unprecedented this capability is. All cultures have some kind of "warrior ethos," and they have all been pretty similar back to the dawn of history. There are cultural differences of course, but some constants we can see from clashing sheildwalls to Crusaders and Mamelukes, to Redcoats and Highlanders, to WW2 firefights and USSF vs. al Qaeda lifers in Tora Bora. Even though advantages can vary widely from time to time, both parties exposed themselves to at least some degree of danger. The whole concept of "courage" and being a "warrior" or a "soldier" are based around this, and these are still described as virtues by all military organizations.

But this new capability, to kill people without the slightest danger to yourself and watch it happen, I think this is something that could be deleterious to the soul in any number of ways. Maybe some people would love it and get addicted to it, others not react at all, and others be repulsed by it. It wouldn't surprise me if somebody who adopted and was made part of a "warrior culture" actually preferred to kill people with a knife.

And as critical as I can be of soliders, imagine if they take them out of the loop! Put the kill switch right in the politicians; hands and you'd probably see less restraint than you do now (which is not much).


Back to the OP, all of this is making me think that psychiatrists treating combat veterans (also police/firefighters/EMTs) should really be an even more specialized discipline than it already is. I bet you the most successful and effective doctor treating veterans and PTSD cases in America is himself a 'Nam vet or something similar.

Thank you Very Much for your post, Ibrahim.

But this new capability, to kill people without the slightest danger to yourself and watch it happen,

Not really .......... as you state in the next phrase........

I think this is something that could be deleterious to the soul in any number of ways.

Quite right.............

Really, it like a "Call of Cthulhu" game.... your sanity points are almost as valuable as your hit points......... and you can lose them bit by bit by what you see and do.......

[Enki]

I don't think we give enough thought to how genuflecting horrifying it is that young women are traumatized by something as inconsequential as their boobs being too small. What's horrifying about it, is not that their boobs are too small, but that they live in a society where that is a source of horror for them.

There may be something to the idea that the human mind tends to magnify trifles to fill the mind, and to shrink down larger things to a manageable size.

Actually, I don't think it's trifling. I think there is something deeply wrong and sick about our society that we feel inadequate for those reasons.

[Demon of Undoing]

Same here. I look at the Old Testament-type events that humans once endured and survived, then look around me, and shudder.

[Enki]

Same here. I look at the Old Testament-type events that humans once endured and survived, then look around me, and shudder.

But look at all your comforts. Why aren't you pacified? You should feel guilty that you are not pacified, something is wrong with you if you are not pacified. Don't you know savage innocents in savage lands far far away on a dark continent are being raped and murdered by savage savages? Why are you not pacified? You should be ashamed of yourself. You should be pacified.