Blogetary Track For The One About Just Walk It Off Soldier.

To read the original version of this article visit The One About... (This is the total opposite of my situation with yesterdays post. I found this picture and it so perfectly complements the post that it was as if I'd directed the subject myself.) There's a saying, you may have heard at one time or another, “There's the right way, the wrong way, and the Army way.” Now I don't know if this is actually something that anyone in the United States Army says much, but even so, there is a certain amount of truth to it. To an extent the idea of the military having ways of doing things that are different from the ways that civilian organizations do things, is sensible and to be expected. But sometimes the army seems to think that they can by force of bureaucratic will force human beings to somehow be significantly different from their non military brethren. This is something that frankly is only workable in the short term. In the long term people are people. Their physicalities and more importantly their psychologies are not really terribly different, one from another.(The simple truth lof the matter is that I don't have a lot of trust for the way the government uses the military. They send people to fight and die in needless wars and then so often it seems just discard them when they are inconvenient.)

So when I read of a plan by the military to start a program to allegedly “eliminate PTSD”. I have to wonder if this isn't yet another example of the military mind set, that so often says, “If we don't acknowledge a problem, then there is no problem.”(This relates to the articles title. I wanted to come up with the most dismissive thing you could say to someone who is in real pain, be it physical, or psychological and the old sports coaches cliche seemed to fit perfectly.)

Cornum planted the idea that the Army needs to be as psychologically fit as it is physically fit. She interested the top brass in focusing on the prevention of mental-health problems rather than treatment after the fact.
“Here’s the problem, sir,” she would say. “We’re devoting a great deal of effort to treating pathology, but 99 percent of people in the Army have normal reactions to fear and trauma. And we have done nothing for these people.”

Now mind I'm not speaking out against the idea of helping people to become more mentally and emotionally resilient. But facts are facts. Emotions are not like a muscle. Just do the right kind of exercises and muscles respond predictably. Emotions can be a great deal more complex. My fear is that soldiers will get this training, and then when they have symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, they will be afraid to say anything about it for fear of being branded as a trouble maker. After all there was a time not to long ago that the military had to work very hard to get soldiers to open up and talk about what was going on with them. I believe that a lot of progress has been made and I'd not wish to see things go back to the way they were.

As one part of a total balanced approach, I think this could be a good thing. But if it becomes an excuse to gloss over real problems, sort of the psychological equivalent of telling someone to rub some dirt in it and take a lap, then all that is going to happen is people bottling up their feelings until they snap and harm themselves or others, which is supposedly what we're trying to forestall in the first place.

Keep The Faith My Brothers And Sisters!

The following resources were used in the creation of this article:

The Sensitive Soldier