U.S. Army
Soldiers on Patrol in Vietnam in 1966 / Wikimedia
During the Vietnam War, as well as subsequent Wars, the U.S.
military plied its servicemen with speed, steroids, and painkillers to help
them handle extended combat ~ but this symptom oriented approach has only
delayed the ravages of PTSD as well as the true extent of soul damage and
suicidal ideation that occurs as the result of drug enhanced active duty
combat: Allen L Roland, PhD
"The Greek epics
aren’t just war stories. They’re stories about the relationships between men,
and the terror they felt in combat. Odysseus comes back from war and his own
wife doesn’t recognize him. This is a very human thing:" Denver Mills, USN retired speaking
of PTSD
Listen to the words of
Vietnam combat veteran, Denver Mills, who became a Veteran Center
adjustment director under the U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs, writing
about the psychic toll of active duty combat;
"At first, we only
saw Vietnam vets, but then, lo and behold, we discovered that WWII and Korea
vets had the same problems. Of course, we knew that all along. After WWII and
Korea, it was “suck it up and don’t talk about it,” but we know that a large
number of WWII veterans either committed suicide or died from
high-risk behaviors.
PTSD is really a
reaction to being exposed to death, and anyone who’s been exposed to death in
even a single incident, like a car accident ~ you don’t want to go back and
think about that all the time. But you can’t not think about it.
Now imagine you’ve had a
whole bunch of people get killed around you, day after day. Afterward, you’re
still amped up on the adrenaline and endorphins, and you just want to calm down
and stay away from people and keep your mind off what you’ve been through. So
you do things, like you work 80 hours a week, then come home and go down in the
basement and drink ’til you pass out. Or maybe go from woman to woman to woman,
or you get into drugs and alcohol. That’s the avoidance phase.
And it’s not just
American veterans. It’s veterans throughout history. There’s a great book
called Achilles in Vietnam written by a psychiatrist and professor of classical
literature. He compared The Iliad and The Odyssey to the experience of vets
he’d worked with.
The Greek epics aren’t
just war stories. They’re stories about the relationships between men, and the
terror they felt in combat. Odysseus comes back from war and his own wife
doesn’t recognize him. This is a very human thing.
I guess I’ve been
struggling, myself, for quite a while, but I think my work with other veterans
helped me take care of my own issues in many ways. Helping other people is a
healthy thing to do."
I am indebted to fellow
Navy veteran Denver Mills, who has not only helped many veterans but also personally helped me set up and fund a special
veteran's Healing the Wounded Heart transformation group with combat veterans
in 2010 ~ based on my book Radical
Therapy, Surrender to Love and Heal Yourself in Seven Sessions (not Seven
Years).
Denver was curious about my
Unified Field of love, joy and soul
consciousness that I wrote was beneath our deepest fears ~ but was amazed by the transformations of many of
the combat veterans who went beneath their pain and drank from that spring of
joy in these Band of Brother's groups and whose lives were changed forever.
Research has found that 3.2 percent of soldiers arriving in Vietnam were heavy
amphetamine users; however, after one year of deployment, this rate rose to
5.2 percent. In short, the administration of stimulants by the military
contributed to the spread of drug habits that sometimes had tragic consequences
~ because amphetamine, as many veterans claimed, increased aggression as well
as alertness. Some remembered that when the effect of speed faded away, they
were so irritated that they felt like shooting “children in the streets.”
By and large, writes David Grossman in his book On Killing, Vietnam was “the
first war in which the forces of modern pharmacology were directed to empower
the battlefield soldier.” For the first time in military history, the
prescription of potent antipsychotic drugs like chlorpromazine, manufactured by
GlaxoSmithKline under the brand name Thorazine, became routine.
This
outcome, however, was short-sighted. By merely alleviating soldiers’ symptoms,
antipsychotic medicines and narcotics brought immediate but temporary relief. Drugs
taken without proper psychotherapy only assuage, suppress, or freeze the
problems that remain deeply embedded in the psyche. Years later, those
problems can explode unexpectedly with multiplied force ~ as they most
certainly did with our rising veteran suicide rate.
Intoxicants
do not eliminate the causes of stress. Instead, observes Grossman, they do “what
insulin does for a diabetic: They treat the symptoms, but the disease is still
there.”
In
her book Flashback,
Penny Coleman quotes a military psychologist who says that If drugs are given while the stressor is
still being experienced, they will arrest or supersede the development of
effective coping mechanisms, resulting in an increase in the long-term trauma
from the stress.
Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) says that rather than continually send heartfelt
condolences to the families of veterans suicide victims, it is time for lawmakers to investigate the
connection between prescription psychiatric drugs and violence, including
suicide.
Here's
an excerpt from their excellent recent wake up call to law makers ~
"
The military long has been aware of the increasing number of military
suicides and last August released the findings of the Department
of Defense (DOD) 2013 Study title "Risk Factors Associated With Suicide
in Current and Former US Military Personnel.
While psychiatric drug information did not make it onto
the questionnaire, CCHR explains that there is ample data to support an
investigation into the increasing number of psychotropic drugs prescribed to
military personnel and the part the drugs may play in the recurring violence."
Here are some important findings from the report ~
· # Since 2002, the suicide rate in
the U.S. military has almost doubled.
· # From 2009 to 2012, more U.S.
Soldiers died by suicide than from traffic accidents, heart disease, cancer and
homicide.
· # In 2012, there were 349 suicides
among active duty military personnel - more than were killed in combat in
Iraq and Afghanistan.
· # Veterans are killing themselves at a
rate of 22 a day - one every 65 minutes.
· # The U.S. Department of Defense now
spends $2 billion a year on mental health alone.
· # The Veterans Administration's mental
health budget has soared from less than $3 billion in 2007 to nearly $7
billion in 2014.
· # From 2005 to 2011, the Department of
Defense and the Veterans Administration increased their prescriptions of
psychiatric drugs by nearly seven times. That's more than thirty times
faster than the civilian rate.
· # One in six American service
members is on at least one psychiatric drug.
· # Thirty-seven percent of recent war
veterans are being diagnosed with PTSD and 80 percent of
those are prescribed a psychiatric drug.
Colonel
Bart Billings ~ a
clinical psychologist with a 34 year military
career in both active and reserves ~ speaks out regarding the growing evidence
of psychiatric drugs, over-
medication, suicide and violence ~ as well as the VA's refusal to deal with the
situation. See this important must see 8
minute video and article ~ http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/04/prweb11735195.html
But
there is a demonstrated Heart Centered approach to PTSD which I have both
facilitated over the past five years as well
as mentored the past year as a heart centered volunteer consultant ~ a
program which concentrates on gratefulness and forgiveness and focuses on
self-healing versus medication.
The power
and truth of a heart centered approach to self-healing has withstood ridicule
and then opposition within the VA and medical pharmaceutical community ~ but it
is now fast approaching the stage where its acceptance and value are
self-evident.
Heart centered spiritual consultant and advisor Allen L
Roland can be contacted at allen@allenroland.com Allen is also a
lecturer and writer who shares a weekly political and social commentary
on his web log and
website allenroland.com. He is
also featured columnist on Veterans Today and is a
featured guest on many radio and Television programs.
