{"id":2611,"date":"2010-01-06T22:09:43","date_gmt":"2010-01-06T14:09:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nick.onetwenty.org\/?p=2611"},"modified":"2010-01-06T22:09:43","modified_gmt":"2010-01-06T14:09:43","slug":"scars-of-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nick.onetwenty.org\/index.php\/2010\/01\/06\/scars-of-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Scars of war"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I was reading <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskReddit\/comments\/alxez\/i_witnessed_my_friends_dad_have_a_ptsd_attack\/\">this post<\/a> on reddit about someone who witnessed a rather severe <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Posttraumatic_stress_disorder\">PTSD<\/a>-induced (posttraumatic stress disorder) psychotic episode. Just being present while someone else (a <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Vietnam_War\">Vietnam War<\/a> veteran) was experiencing an episode was understandably very traumatic for the author.<\/p>\n<p>I found this quote (from <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Jarhead_(book)\">Jarhead<\/a>) in the post&#8217;s comments:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>A story: A man fires a rifle for many years, and he goes to war. And afterward he turns the rifle in at the armory, and he believes he&#8217;s finished with the rifle. But no matter what else he might do with his hands, love a woman, build a house, change his son&#8217;s diaper; his hands remember the rifle.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The impact of war is felt well beyond the term of the war. Not only in the scars left in the minds of former soldiers (and non-combatants), but also in the ongoing impact on family and friends. A broken cog deforms those around it, and these problems propagate throughout the machine of society.<\/p>\n<p>I find it reprehensible that our political leaders are so willing to send others to war &#8211; especially when deciding factors more often concern economic gain (cold war, oil, gas) rather than objective safety and security. I feel absolutely sick to my gut hearing hollow justifications for the atrocity of war.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s a reason why the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vvaa.org.au\/vvcs.htm\">VVCS<\/a> (Vietnam Veterans&#8217; Family Counselling Service) has a free 24-hour Clinical Counsellor telephone service: almost 40 years later, the war casts a dark shadow over former soldiers and those close to them.<\/p>\n<p>When the United Nations was formed after World War II, it was declared that:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>WE THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, &#8230;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Those words carry a collective understanding of the impact of war on all of society, and yet war continues to this day &#8211; serving the interests of corporate greed and economic power. And it deeply disappoints me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was reading this post on reddit about someone who witnessed a rather severe PTSD-induced (posttraumatic stress disorder) psychotic episode. Just being present while someone else (a Vietnam War veteran) was experiencing an episode was understandably very traumatic for the author. I found this quote (from Jarhead) in the post&#8217;s comments: A story: A man &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/nick.onetwenty.org\/index.php\/2010\/01\/06\/scars-of-war\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Scars of war&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paLsRH-G7","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nick.onetwenty.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2611"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nick.onetwenty.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nick.onetwenty.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nick.onetwenty.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nick.onetwenty.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2611"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/nick.onetwenty.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2625,"href":"https:\/\/nick.onetwenty.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2611\/revisions\/2625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nick.onetwenty.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nick.onetwenty.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nick.onetwenty.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}