Imagine being a soldier. Fighting war is the way of life. Death, destruction, and mayhem are everyday occurrences. Killing people you don’t know, because you are ordered to, for reasons you don’t understand. Living life on pure adrenaline, never quite sure if today is the day you watch a friend die. Knowing that even if it is, you can’t grieve, you must keep fighting, you must keep shooting. Watching brothers-in-arms lose limbs or suffer irreversible injuries. Hearing silence shattered by bullets and bombs, the anguished screams of people with whom you share an unbreakable bond, or even worse, innocent civilians caught in the crossfire of situations out of their control.
Then imagine what it must be like to have to reintegrate into civilian society. Having to live an everyday, ‘normal’ life, when, for months, normality has consisted of a permanent adrenaline rush, of seeing sights most people can’t possibly comprehend. To go from watching people die in agony, sometimes at your own hands, to doing the weekly supermarket run and playing catch with your children in the back garden.
The effect on the human psyche of undergoing such a massive paradigm shift is very hard to comprehend. It is unsurprising to learn that many service members return from war with mental illness, and are unable to adapt. Out of the 1.7 million who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, The Rand Corporation suggests that an estimated 600,000 suffer from mental health conditions. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs say that 11-20% of these service members experience Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), compared with 7-8% of the general population. Sadly, a study by Veterans for America discovered that soldiers are often expected to wait up to a month for psychological treatment, such is the demand for these services.
Poster Comment:
Biden made Vets wait for care while he gave it to illegal aliens who arrived here last month.