Recently I was honored to be asked to contribute a few answers to questions sent to me by Ilona Meagher for her book 
“Moving A Nation To Care”. That honor was extended further when she used abit of what I had givin her in her pages of an outstanding, easy to read and understand book, that though looks small is loaded with a library of information, compiled by her and those who helped her from ePluribus Media.
I don’t need to guess, for like myself long long ago, I doubt if many of those with Ilona, herself included, had given much thought to PTSD untill, what us Vietnam Vets promised long ago we would not allow to happen again Happened, another failed policy debacle of invading a country that did absolutely nothing to us and certainly it’s citizens did not deserve the Death and Destruction we wrought upon them.
As we saw it coming we also were warning about what would happen if the policy were carried through, it was, and with Extreme Sadness we were right, not those who made the policy, as most everyone knows now!
So everything that happens in a War Theater, especially one to be warned as another Guerilla War, has happened, and continues to be so. Including the damage done to minds of those serving and those living in those theaters!
Press Release New OEF/OIF Combat PTSD Book ‘Moving a Nation to Care’ a Timely Resource for Citizens, Military Families and Veterans
“Moving a Nation to Care brings desperately needed attention to the devastating hidden costs of war. Anyone who wants to ‘support the troops’ should read this important book,” Paul Rieckhoff, author of Chasing Ghosts, and Executive Director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA).
Steve Robinson, director of veterans affairs at Veterans for America. “If it creates debate in
Trish Wood, author of What Was Asked of Us: An Oral History of the Iraq War by the Soldiers Who Fought It, adds that “This is a must read for returning troops and their families. Ilona Meagher’s book will save lives.”
You can read the full Press Release and download the pdf to distribute or for yourself at link above.
As I said above PTSD wasn’t even in my mind in my younger years, though I was viewing the results of at differant times in my life, without understanding except knowing the incidents that happened to cause changes in the people they happened to had something to do with the tragic events.
It wasn’t even in anybody elses vocabulary as those four letters, PTSD, and words ‘Post Traumatic Stress Disorder’, didn’t exists together. The other names, like ‘battle fatigue’ or ‘combat stress’, as to Wars/Conflicts, were heard but that’s all, they came than just left.
If someone carried it with them, further into their lives, other reasons were brought up and only an occasional “Well he served in the War!” would be mentioned but not really understood. And as most know, many veterans of conflicts will rarely discuss what they saw or did. Most of that has to do with the ‘How does one speak the words that others will understand without them having the experiance of something that can’t be explained., existing in a hell on earth’.
I had an interest in how the mind works, including mine, from a young age. That blob in our heads does amazing things and really is a wonder. Didn’t have the deeper drive to pursue an education in Psychology or related fields, as even in other interests, but did read books and magazines on the subjects it covers.
I’ve known people, friends and others, who had tramatic experiances, from my young years to the present, who have changed, from minor changes to almost complete personal changes right after their experiances happened. In my younger years you couldn’t really put a name on it, you just knew that the experiances had something to do with the changes. Now one can give a name to what is happening, PTSD, just four letters makes everyone understand, everyone that is who has been paying attention.
I had a couple of uncles, and others I’ve known, who served in WWII, and Korea, that latter in life the silent 
trauma they had been experiancing finally came out completely breaking them from what they were, triggered by some experiance years after their initial nightmares started. But again there wasn’t a specific label to place on what they were going through, so recent events were looked at not the past traumatic events.
After joining the Navy in ’67, and some how ending up serving on shore bases my whole 4yr tour, a Naval Air station in Mississippi for a year, a small Naval base at the mouth of the Panama Canal, Pacific side, across the bridge from Panama city for a year and a half, I got orders to Counter Insurgency Training prior to a tour in ‘Nam.
Right from the beginning, where boot starts making the changes to Military thinking, even in Navy boot, from that which you’ve been taught or observed since childhood, by parents and others, religious teachings, history teachings, etc. etc. etc., you are prepared to confront the enemies{?] that exist in the world. Back than it was mostly a Political Ideology that was the enemy{?} and those that lived under that umbrella of that Political Ideology Leadership.
Those military mind changes are attempts to soften the experiances of a War one might be sent to serve Your Country in, amoung other needed militay mindsets.
Once PTSD was recognized, and my tour in the Military and ‘Nam, all those past reflections of family and friends, and their changes, started rushing back, I could finally understand what was causing them to start acting completely differant from the way they had been before.
I even began to understand why some friends, who had served tours in ‘Nam, came home only to volunteer to serve there again, some being killed on those second tours and a few on their third tours. What others had told me about how they had completely changed, after returning from their first tours, was made clearer. They couldn’t live in a relative safer stable society, they had to rejoin their nightmares.
It also made it clearer as to why some, who serve in Military’s, come out only to turn around and become Mercenaries in others Wars, Guns for Hire sans who’s right or wrong. Mercenaries have been around as long as man’s Wars and so has PTSD.
Visit Ilona’s site PTSD Combat: Winning the War Within, and continue to visit, not only hers but the other sites now found easily with this tecnology, some linked from hers, relating to what can happen to those who serve in War Theaters and never forget the citizens who live in those Theaters.
Pick up a copy, or two, of Ilona’s book Moving A Nation To Care. For it’s a fresh referance work that is needed in these times and for the generations of now. To lead one into the studies that came before and the knowledge of those who created those studies. With hope that it will finally be studied even further as to cause, what happens to the mind, better care for those who suffer from, a better understanding of War, and how it can effect civilians who experiance traumatic events, along with a whole host of other related information.
Visit ePluribus Media, for I know that this group of folks who came together and took on the issue of PTSD and the returning Iraq/Afgan Troops, amoung other important issues of citizen journalism, like Ilona, will not be dropping this issue. Even as they research the many things that should be further studied in an ever growing complex world.
Visit the ePluribus Media Timelines, and if you find something relating to the timelines, contribute.
Donate, if you can, to help further their collective work, not only as to PTSD.
This is a subject, and book, not only to ‘Move A Nation’ but should be used to ‘Move This World’ for PTSD has no borders!
PTSD, can and does happen to more than Military Personal and Civilians of War Theaters! It can and will happen to many who face a traumatic experiance. This generation, and those to come, must grasp a further understanding of what happens to ones mind to better understand the causes of and the treatments for!
A few who suffer from their traumatic experiances, and you need only a few, carry those nightmares into their reality causing destructive behavior towards others creating even more victims of!
Let the present generations pick up, that which in mine was only started, and throughly get involved in the understanding needed, Please!
