A flurry of postings today while we attempt to catch up summarizing reading we've done over the last several weeks, with no time to post the results, as it were.
An interesting article from the Iowa City, IA's Press-Citizen, that's a Q&A session with Dr. Maureen McCue, coordinator of the Iowa chapter of the progessive and esteemed "Physicians for Social Responsiblity." McCue is talking about PTSD and the trauma of war, and she recently organized a conference entitled, "The Medical Consequences of War."
Two good quotes from the article:
"The reported rate of PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, is markedly higher than in recent wars because of the nature of the fighting within the population centers. The soldiers have no way of knowing where or who the enemy is. They feel surrounded by danger and are being told to suspect anyone and everyone. Thus, they have even been forced to kill women and children at close range. This is extremely disturbing and has very long-lasting effects."
Also,
In response to a question about whether psychological problems are more prevalent than physical problems for vets upon homecoming, McCue gives us the first practical metric on the topic. She says that they are, by far. "For every soldier killed, almost 10 times as many are wounded and 10 times that many come home with mental health problems." As of tonight, more than 2300 troops have been killed. If what McCue postulates is even generally true, that's some pretty frightening math we're contemplating...
