PTSD victims can be community assets

Editor:

Post-traumatic stress disorder is a problem in any community containing warriors or old soldiers — and also very young soldiers just out of Afghanistan and Iraq. If these young warriors learn to cope with their symptoms, they are no trouble to the community nor to themselves. Women may be affected as much and as often as men. Dogs, too, have symptoms.

If PTSD sufferers do not learn to cope with their symptoms — as all older PTSD sufferers must have done, since suicide is a common symptom — they can indeed be a danger to themselves. A local case involved an Iraqi vet father who lost total custody of his child because of his careless reaction to one of his own symptoms. The father is to blame if anybody, but both father and child are punished. Two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are ultimately to blame, not any two people at all, but the two people involved are punished.

Bottom line, we are all responsible for PTSD sufferers. Brotherly and sisterly love or a grandparent's love will help most of all; love of God and church follows; locally Immanuel Baptist Church does the best job overall, Fifth Avenue Christian and the Methodist churches have programs in place, but every church will help; Bullhook Clinic will help most for some who need special counseling. We all must help to deal justly with the warriors who protect us.

In ancient Athens, 4th Century B. C., non-commissioned officer Socrates fought two wars against the massive odds of the Persian Empire to save his beloved home town of Athens from annihilation. He had symptoms of severe PTSD by age 40. At 40, he decided there was a better way than war to solve human differences. Consequently, he invented the science of ethics, a gift to all mankind for the past 2,400 years, but for his trouble he was executed by his own home town people. The crime? Essentially instructing the youth in ethics rather than warfare.

PTSD victims are often very focused and intense and can be great achievers and assets to the community if given a chance. Let us not have our very productive PTSD victims suffer an equal fate to Socrates.

William Thackeray, Havre

Editor:

Post-traumatic stress disorder is a problem in any community containing warriors or old soldiers — and also very young soldiers just out of Afghanistan and Iraq. If these young warriors learn to cope with their symptoms, they are no trouble to the community nor to themselves. Women may be affected as much and as often as men. Dogs, too, have symptoms.

If PTSD sufferers do not learn to cope with their symptoms — as all older PTSD sufferers must have done, since suicide is a common symptom — they can indeed be a danger to themselves. A local case involved an Iraqi vet father who lost total custody of his child because of his careless reaction to one of his own symptoms. The father is to blame if anybody, but both father and child are punished. Two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are ultimately to blame, not any two people at all, but the two people involved are punished.

Bottom line, we are all responsible for PTSD sufferers. Brotherly and sisterly love or a grandparent's love will help most of all; love of God and church follows; locally Immanuel Baptist Church does the best job overall, Fifth Avenue Christian and the Methodist churches have programs in place, but every church will help; Bullhook Clinic will help most for some who need special counseling. We all must help to deal justly with the warriors who protect us.

In ancient Athens, 4th Century B. C., non-commissioned officer Socrates fought two wars against the massive odds of the Persian Empire to save his beloved home town of Athens from annihilation. He had symptoms of severe PTSD by age 40. At 40, he decided there was a better way than war to solve human differences. Consequently, he invented the science of ethics, a gift to all mankind for the past 2,400 years, but for his trouble he was executed by his own home town people. The crime? Essentially instructing the youth in ethics rather than warfare.

PTSD victims are often very focused and intense and can be great achievers and assets to the community if given a chance. Let us not have our very productive PTSD victims suffer an equal fate to Socrates.

William Thackeray, Havre