Silly Kevin! Why, this is good news: it's time to invest in generic manufacturers of SSRI's! Dubya, always creating new opportunities!

From personal experience with customers who include a lot of Iraq War veterans, I can confidently say that the problems of veteran care will be much bigger than we have seen in the past, and much bigger than our VA is set up to treat. We are focusing here on the humanitarian side of the issue, and we are right to do so. However, there is another side. Policy discussions have not addressed the effects of criminal policies and criminal training. Leaving aside the recruitment of people with a criminal history, the evidence that their political leaders have directed troops to behave criminally is mounting. I have had Iraq War veterans say that they are entitled to use violence as a consequence of their service and consistent with their training. They are not just prone to violence from the effects of PTSD. According to Vietnam and Desert Storm veterans on my staff, one of whom suffers from fairly severe PTSD himself and has lately taken a lead role in VA PTSD suffer's group therapy, that is new.

So in a completely unrelated note, who is the only one in Washington who is getting worked up over Russia getting closer with (are you sitting down?) Abkhazia!

Well its none other than John (Sunni,Shia?? I thought they were all communist) McCain!

There are plenty of reasons to care about Georgia. As a European I really like central heating, so I to care about gas pipelines from russia central asia and Iran. Saying its a young democracy may be stretching it... Very young maybe so even with the crackdowns and us induced military spending spree it deserves some help. But if every time Russia tries to ask attention for its unrelated concerns the US president starts the cold war 2.0 talk then things are gonna go wrong.

Maybe the next time some journalist sees McCain he can ask whether mcCain wants to:
A. draw down troops in Iraq (less ptsd) OR
B. Draw down troops in Afghanistan (Usama Bin who? Sunni parents right?) OR
C. Start drafting college republicans (serious question, starting now is the best way to stay in Iraq for 10 years) OR
D. Tell Putin he wasn't serious and can he please make sure all those US "trainers" and "border guards" are safe since there are no troops left to back them up in the event fan and feces interact abrubtly when those akhazians do what everybody said they would do when the US acted like a kid on Christmas eve before Kosovo set the example and became independent. (PTSD forecast: extended tours for everyone)

The current scenario is ripe for mental anguish. We are in the middle of a "no win" situation. There can be no clearly-defined moment where we can claim victory, unlike WWII, with VE and VJ days. When this episode ends, or at least we draw down to a maintenance level, there will be thousands of vets going, "What the hell was that all about?"

War itself is bad enough, but throw in a few atrocities and untold levels of needless suffering (which many soldiers will witness firsthand, given the lengthy and repeated deployments), the isolation that seems to be a part of the soldier's job description, and the stress of daily "will I die today" service, it's no wonder that the numbers for PTSD and TBI will be huge.

If there were a true and meaningful "mission accomplished" for returning vets, the healing would probably be easier to facilitate.

It's unfortunate that the only "mission accomplished" for this endeavor will be remembered as an ill-conceived banner on an aircraft carrier, with a spoiled frat boy posing in a flight suit for a photo op.

Many families will be left wondering, "What the hell was that all about?"

There will be a terrible rage. Vietnam vets, even those that know, don't like hearing that the answer to "what the hell was that all about?" was some cold-war macho bullshit notion of "credibility." How much worse to know that the present sacrifice was so that Commander Codpiece could pose in a flight suit? The bitterness of the years to come will make the bitterness that came in the wake of Vietnam look like a Jane Austen novel. And that's not even counting the disastrous consequences for U.S interests in the outside world. This maladministration has screwed us but good.

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Swan: Lucky for our guys at least that they have modern helmets
You have no idea what you're talking about.

I say this not to bust your chops but because it's true. Your penance is to go and make a donation.

The last Iraq war brought us Tim McVeigh. I can't help but think that the blowback is going to be a lot worse this time around.

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Swan,

When are you enlisting? It's kind of like lacrosse except that you don't get to gang-bang a stripper.

Swan, you bleating nimrod, shut the fuck up. You DON'T know what you are talking about. Ever. This is a serious topic and you should treat it as such and shut the fuck up and learn something.

Thersites - I have a loved on in the middle of this clusterfuck, and I am relieved that this little twerp is no where close to him. I want him home in one piece, and idiots like Swan get good people killed.

Good point, volatile compound. Prayers for your loved one.

IMPEACH, give Nan a call @1-202-225-0100, I did.

Broadening to the cost and debacle of the war as a whole: a new report from the Pentagon's premier military educational institute says Iraq war was ruinous and a net loss for US, Rummy most to blame.

Link

Anyone who's played a lot of contact sports, football/hockey/lacrosse/karate or just horsing around, will have been bonked like that at least once, and will know what I'm talking about.

Swan, you ignorant fucking jackass--

THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO CORRELATION BETWEEN "SPORTS" and ACTUAL FUCKING COMBAT.

Did I say that loud enough? Good.

There is no correlation between playing sports and combat. None. Different injuries, different gear, different traumas, different circumstances. Being thrown to the grass in a lacrosse match is not the same as being blown out of the door of a HUMVEE at fifty miles an hour by an IED made out of daisy-chained 120mm mortar rounds.

It's not like all those guys got hit in the head with a piece of shrapnel. There is absolutely no way 320,000 guys got a brain injury from being hit in the head by a bullet or by shrapnel. We'd be pulling out of Iraq already.

See above, fuckstick.

Could you be any more ignorant, stupid, and totally out of your fucking mind without a clue?

Seriously--what chemicals or chemical imbalances caused you to be the most retarded fucking idiot who ever drew breath in public?

As always Kevin, thank you for the link and for helping disseminate important information.

Swan, this thread is no place for your constant nonsensical yammering. Go find an AOL chatroom or something closer to your intellectual timbre.

Neil, that link you provided is the centerpiece of the post I'm working on now.

Swan is living proof that if you huff too much diesel, you can still pass your bar exam AND comment on blogs...

Your comments won't make sense and you probably won't find a job after graduating, but hey...

Anecdotally, the receptionist at my Optometrist informed me just this week that her son had recently returned from his second tour in Iraq and, as he is on his way back to civilian life, he was 'warned' (as in 'threatened with his life') by superiors to never divulge the horrors that he had witnessed there. Explicitly, the words used were that if he did go public on what he seen, he would "forever have to watch his back".

Imagine an experience so atrocious that, should you ever succumb to the need to let it out in order to mentally stabilize, you are volunteering to subject yourself to a Christian version of the life of Salman Rushdie.

Dammit.

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Note to self: If I ever need to sue anyone in New Jersey, make sure Swan is his/her attorney.

It's the concussive force. You understand that, right? It's about the force of a blast bouncing the brain around inside the skull. That causes And the padding inside the helmet has fuck-all to do with that! More info on this new beast known as TBI can be found here.

Whatever, swan...given the amount of deference you get here, I'm sure folks will stay away in droves on your recommendation alone. Good Ford, I pity your client.

Alright, I hope any regular reader of this blog can see that my comments are normal, informed comments, and that the several comments written to criticize me are questionable.

No, they're not. They're ignorant.

The outer, protective portion of modern military helmets (like the ones the U.S. forces wear now) are made of Kevlar or plastic.

So? What the fuck does that have to do with anything?

It's common knowledge that a very simple knock on the head can cause a concussion, and this happens in all sorts of sports and accidents, and falling to the ground and hitting one's head on the ground is just the type of thing that could do it. There's no reason why falling on the ground in Iraq is more or less likely to cause on concussion than falling on the ground anywhere else. My remark about bicycle helmets was, of course, not any kind of argument that the troops today might as well wear bicycle helmets, or anything like that, and trying to make it sound like I was saying something like that is illogical and dishonest.

What makes you "fall on the ground in Iraq" is combat, you snivelling little shit. What makes you "fall on the ground" is when the vehicle in which you are riding at top speed down a highway is blown entirely off of its tires and thrown into the air, and is then deposited on the ground with soldiers inside. Each and every one of these incidents causes death, trauma and injury that varies considerably--witness the tens of thousands of casualties. Many tens of thousands more are less injured in these attacks and return to duty after recovering from injuries that the hospitals in the theater are not equipped or staffed to treat. It can take a while for the symptoms of a severe injury to manifest themselves--which is why so many tens of thousands of troops are having concentration, vision, hearing, smelling, and other issues long after they return to the states. Their head injuries--as the piece FUCKING explains--are not being diagnosed, treated and accounted for properly.

You are a snide, uninformed, malignantly-oriented little shit living in your own fantasy world if you think YOU are smarter than the people who are trying treat and heal these Veterans. You are woefully inept at explaining yourself--witness post after post "clarifying" what you did or did not mean when you failed to think through what you commented on in the first place.

For once and for always, just shut the fuck up. You don't know what you're talking about and you don't bring anything of any merit to any discussion that isn't about huffing gas out of a rag or stammering about why people don't respect you.

And just read what Blue Girl writes on her blog--you don't have to read what I put on there--and you'll see that she puts more care, concern and brain power into her posts than you could muster in a lifetime of stammering and explaining and clarifying.

You deserve every ounce of disrespect and vitriol you inspire. Contemplate that while you're staring at your navel, won't you?

What's even more amusing is that Swan used the term "bonk" as in "bonked on the head" like it's all a fucking cartoon that his retarded, ignorant, shit-headed ass watches over and over again...

"Bonk!"

Yeah, that's EXACTLY what it is. You're ENTIRELY correct. It's just a "BONK" on the head that has made several hundred thousand men and women lose the threads of their existence and suffer horribly...

"BONK!"

Fucking hilarious. Like a cartoon mouse hitting a cartoon cat over the head with a mallet.

"BONK!"

The study was based on a questionaire, the results of which were extrapolated to the population of returning Iraq and Afghanistan vets. "Probable Traumatic Brain Injury" or "TBI" was defined for the purpose of the study as:

"any injury during deployment that resulted in an alteration of consciousness immediately following the injury—e.g., being confused, experiencing memory loss, being unconscious. Meeting screening criteria for having experienced a probable TBI does not require current TBI-related morbidity. Thus, the instrument does not assess ongoing functional or cognitive impairment caused by a TBI. Most individuals who screen positive for having experienced a probable TBI are likely to have full cognitive functioning." (See RAND study at p. 93)

[You are not being censored. You are being moderated. Your rights are not being infringed. You are free to say whatever you want on your own site, but I have decided that I will not tolerate you when you a) attack people who have been here for years and earned solid reputations, and b) say stupid and asinine things that derail conversations. Learn how to act and you will be tolerated. Don't, and you will continue to be moderated.]

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Okay, Swan. You can exercise your real power after you've taken your meds.

You wanna debate me on this shit, Swan?

You couldn't debate yourself out of a wet paper bag if your babysitter was there with a bottle and a clean diaper to straighten you out.

At some point, I suspect what you've written will be moderated away, so what's the point?

Fuck off and die, you pathetic little shit.

Pale,
You're right, what's the point? Kind of like getting into an ass-kicking contest with a one-legged man, isn't it?

Thersites,

Well, I'd kick that ass if I had to--but the mods have stepped in and settled it.

No harm, no foul.

Everyone has a right to be a jackass in public, and God knows I've exercised that right myself.

320k brain injuries. Jesus Christ.

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