[Zardoz]

Another "side effect" of our ongoing resource war:

Long tours in Iraq may be minefield for mental health

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he Pentagon report was based on a mental health survey of 1,320 soldiers and 447 Marines in Iraq.

The report found that soldiers — whose tours were about twice as long as Marines' — had lower morale, more marital problems and higher rates of mental health disorders.

The military decided last month to extend Army tours by 90 days.

The report also found that soldiers on repeat tours were more likely to suffer acute stress, and that mental health problems correlated with higher rates of battlefield misconduct.

[katkinkate]

I don't see how anyone could be surprised about this. Wars have always traumatised a proportion of the participants. Usually those at the bloody end of the conflicts. Yet it seems every war produces a new flush of reports and articles about how traumatised the soldiers are getting as if it's something new.

[billp]

Maybe if the troops are drugged out they may be okay?

[joewp]

The soldiers that aren't killed or maimed are damaged psychologically. No one escapes killing their fellow humans unscathed. This is just one of the myriad of reasons that war should only be entered into when absolutely necessary. Unfortunately, most wars have been started due to potential profits for the few, and promoted as "just" or "moral" by those very war profiteers.

They depend on the stupidity of the people, and the people are the ones who suffer. Let's wise up, folks.

[savethehumans]

I don't see how ANYONE comes back from that hellhole unscathed.

[Roy]

And now for an 'enlightening' opinion piece from that bastion of conservatism, Fox News

Brilliant NeoCon Propaganda

Casting Soldiers as Victims of War

As if they're not victims of an idiotic war-for-profit.

I forgot, we're fightin' 'em there so we won't have to fight 'em here. Damned terrurists.

HAHAHAHAHA

[Curator]

There have been some excellent studies on this dating back to WWII. Lt Col Dave Grossman, in his book On Killing, talks about Swank and Marchand's study of WWII psychiatric casualties, which found that 98% of troops in combat (being shot at, expected to shoot at others) for more than 60 days continuously would become psychiatric casualties. (The 2% that magically escaped this fate were what we'd now call sociopaths.) This can be largely prevented by rotating troops out to the "rear" after 30 days of combat. But what if there is no nice, safe "rear" - like in Vietnam, and arguably exactly like the situation in Iraq?

One thing that I've been considering is this: in a post-collapse (post-peak) society, isn't it possible that we'll all be in combat-like situations constantly for MUCH longer than 60 days? I wonder how psychiatric casualties could be prevented in Iraq and beyond. The Vietnam data seems to suggests that drugs, while effective in the short term, do not prevent psychiatric casualties in the long term (lifetime of the veteran).

The Grossman book, while flawed in parts (he believes in satanic ritual murders and thinks that video games are responsible for teenage violence and that violence in males can be prevented by teaching them to express their feelings), is an excellent popular source for people interested in the psychological effects of killing in combat.

[Zardoz]

Another piece on this from the NYT:

Fighting the Terror of Battles That Rage in Soldiers’ Heads

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he nightmares that tormented Sgt. Walter Padilla after returning home from Iraq in 2004 prompted extensive treatment by Army doctors, an honorable discharge from the military and a cocktail of medication to dull his suffering.

Still, Sergeant Padilla, 28, could not ward off memories of the people he had killed with a machine gun perched on his Bradley fighting vehicle. On April 1, according to the authorities and friends, he withdrew to the shadows of his Colorado Springs home, pressed the muzzle of his Glock pistol to his temple and squeezed the trigger.