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So why haven't they gone crazy? Because you don't get PTSD from sitting on your ass around Walter Reed. Not only is it not possible to “catch” secondhand PTSD, but it is not that kind of a place. I would know, I was a patient there for nine months. The place is simply not that stressful or chaotic. When I was there my PTSD got better, not worse. And I would be willing to bet my dog tags that I saw far more wounded Soldiers than shit bag major did during our overlapping time there in 2007. I regularly visited...

The Nothing-to-see-here media continue to do a grand job. Chris Matthews: We may never know if religion was a factor at Fort Hood. That's almost certainly true in your case, Chris. As for yelling "Allahu akbar" as you open fire, Michael Tomasky, one of the American lefties on the Guardian's payroll, explains it for us know-nothings: The fact that Hassan reportedly shouted the above is meant, I suppose, to imply that he was an extremist fanatic. I'm not sure that it does. My understanding is that it's something Arab people often shout before doing something or other. It's used in...

Health experts say they are hardly astonished that the suspect in the worst mass murder ever at a U.S. military base is an Army psychiatrist — the very person who is supposed to be helping soldiers deal with the traumatic stress of war. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, suspected of gunning down 13 and wounding 30 at the Fort Hood Army Post in Texas, treated soldiers at the Darnall Army Medical Center there after being transferred in July from the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he had worked for six years. Dr. Robin Kerner, an attending psychologist who specializes in...

A veteran made an appearance on Larry King with Dr. Phil and a former POW Shoshana Johnson to discuss the possible motivations of Nidal Hasan. After Dr. Phil pontificates on the mental state of a man he doesn't know, Tom Kenneth a veteran and civil defense attorney states that he thinks it is time to take a step back from the psycho babble. Ms. Johnson and Dr. Phil spend the rest of the segment chastising him while Kenneth continues to make his point. Video at the link

<p>Thursday's deadly rampage raises a red flag over the issue of combat stress.</p> <p>The suspected gunman, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, worked on that very issue at the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress (CSTS), which assesses the behavioral and psychological risks of traumatic events, such as combat, terrorism, natural disasters and public health threats.</p>

NORFOLK, Va., Nov. 4, 2009 – Army Staff Sgt. Megan Krause’s words come out in a rush, as if she wants everyone to hear and learn from her story. Staff Sgt. Megan Krause, an Army Reserve medic who has served in Iraq and Afghanistan, hopes to help other servicemembers by telling her story of seeking help when post-traumatic stress had her spiraling out of control. Courtesy photo  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Krause, an Army reservist with the 365th Engineer Battalion in Pennsylvania, does want people to hear her story, and she wants to connect with servicemembers so they...

Multiple-session early psychological interventions are no better at reducing posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms than no intervention at all and might even increase symptoms in some individuals, a review of 11 randomized controlled studies shows. “There was no evidence that a multiple session intervention aimed at everyone following a traumatic event was effective. There was a trend that just failed to reach significance for no intervention to result in less self-reported PTSD symptoms at 3 to 6-month follow-up than a multiple session intervention,” wrote Neil P. Roberts, D.Clin.Psy., of the Traumatic Stress Service at Cardiff and Vale National Health Services (Wales),...

MUNCIE, Ind. -- A 21-year-old military veteran fatally shot himself inside a central Indiana movie theater shortly after he argued with employees over being asked to produce ID to see an R-rated film, police said. Muncie police said no one else was hurt at the theater, including the man's two brothers, a friend and eight others attending the horror comedy "Zombieland."

Military Mentality by: Sarah Carlsruh, October 05, 2009 The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) hosted a conference on September 25th on the mental health of soldiers, specifically the issue of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A physiological condition that is a manifestation of extreme stress, PTSD is a struggle for 10-20% of combat-exposed soldiers, said Dr. Charles Hoge. Science Daily reported on September 15th that PTSD for Iraq veterans could reach as high as 35%. Yet, there are ways to cope and turn it into post-traumatic growth, argued speakers at AEI. Nate Self, former Army Ranger and father of four, detailed the...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 24, 2009 – The Veterans Affairs Department is taking steps to help veterans seeking compensation for post-traumatic stress disorder, VA Secretary Eric K. Shinseki announced today. “The hidden wounds of war are being addressed vigorously and comprehensively by this administration as we move VA forward in its transformation to the 21st century,” Shinseki said. VA is publishing a proposed regulation today in the Federal Register to make it easier for a veteran to claim service connection for PTSD by reducing the evidence needed if the stressor claimed is related to fear of hostile military or terrorist activity. Comments...

PHILADELPHIA — The Army plans to require that all 1.1 million of its soldiers take intensive training in emotional resiliency, military officials say. The training, the first of its kind in the military, is meant to improve performance in combat and head off the mental health problems, including depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide, that plague about one-fifth of troops returning from Afghanistan and Iraq. Active-duty soldiers, reservists and members of the National Guard will receive the training, which will also be available to their family members and to civilian employees. The new program is to be introduced at two...

"On June 30th Major Chris Galloway took his own life. He had come back from Afghanistan in April, and things just weren’t the same we’re told." "Why’d we lose him? Who the hell knows. There is no rational reason for doing such a thing, so using reason to figure it out is both impossible and ineffectual. It accomplishes nothing. In the end, he’s still gone. For the sake of his wife, his kids, and for ourselves it’s better to remember him for who he was. Given that he was so much to so many, there’s a lot to think about....

Past the barber shops advertising $6 military cuts, weapons stores and used car lots, an anti-war coffeehouse occupies a small wooden house on a corner of Texas' biggest Army town. Six months after opening, the Under the Hood cafe has become home to a growing number of veterans and active-duty soldiers who are beginning to question America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Less than a mile from the gates of 53,000-troop Fort Hood, the cafe is a place where soldiers, many of them fresh off of multiple deployments, can swap stories and ideas without fear of retribution, its supporters say....

The comment thread about the loss of one of Flopping Aces' own, Maj. Chris Galloway, has all of us doing some head scratching as to what we can do as individuals. This sense of helplessness, *after* the loss, is simply not acceptable. Wordsmith did provide some extra insight in his remembrance of Chris with a YouTube link, but I felt that Major General Mark Graham - Commander, Division West and Fort Carson, Colo - and his suicide prevention program needs to be broadened with a grassroots movement. Below is the ACE card given to military members.. ASK, CARE and ESCORT....

Life and the internet are strange strange things. I've been trading emails and posts etc with Chris for years now. It wasn't at all uncommon for his duties, deployments, and family to make those virtual conversations sporadic from time to time. Well, Chris won't be returning emails anymore. He passed away suddenly on June 30, 2009. Last Fall he and his wife Shannon had a baby girl, Lilly. Chris was so happy. We teased him about how awful it is to step on Barbie Doll high heels in the middle of the night, and he bragged about how his...

WASHINGTON (AFRNS) -- One-hundred twenty-three American heroes from the Vietnam War era will be honored posthumously this month during the annual In Memory Day ceremony, according to Jan C. Scruggs, founder and president of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. In Memory Day was created to pay tribute to those who died prematurely from noncombat injuries and emotional suffering caused directly by the Vietnam War, but who are not eligible to have their names inscribed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. A list of the honorees and their hometowns is available at www.vvmf.org/index.cfm?SectionID=774. The 11th annual In Memory Day ceremony begins at...

THURSTON COUNTY: Goal is to identify, treat before crimes turn serious Ryan Harrington returned home from war a broken man. A former Army Ranger, he served a combined 18 months in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, and lost his best friend in an attack. Suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, Harrington, 26, couldn’t hold down any one of a series of eight jobs. Always on edge, he’d binge drink to get a good night’s sleep; otherwise, he’d be up for days. He fired three therapists after exploding in anger when they wanted him to talk about experiences he had locked deep...

No direct impact caused Paul McQuigg’s brain injury in Iraq three years ago. And no wound from the incident visibly explains why Mr. McQuigg, now an office manager at a California Marine base, can get lost in his own neighborhood or arrive at the grocery store having forgotten why he left home. But his blast injury — concussive brain trauma caused by an explosion’s invisible force waves — is no less real to him than a missing limb is to other veterans. Just how real could become clearer after he dies, when doctors slice up his brain to examine any...

EL CAJON, Calif., May 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD today announced the results of his research into the "series" of veterans' deaths acknowledged by the Surgeon General of the Army. Upon reading the May 24, 2008, Charleston (WV) Gazette article "Vets taking Post Traumatic Stress Disorder drugs die in sleep," Baughman began to investigate why these reported deaths were "different." And, why they were likely, the "tip of an iceberg." Andrew White, Eric Layne, Nicholas Endicott and Derek Johnson were four West Virginia veterans who died in their sleep in early 2008. Baughman's research suggests that they...

Noble Warriors!! I must confess I can no longer remain silent, stand by and watch. We have banded together in the face of adversity before and once more we will. There is a new battlefield!! Too many of us are bringing the enemy home; distressing our loved ones. .....Are you Stressed? Depressed? Isolated, Angry and full of Resentment? Who will take care of us if we don’t? There is no need to struggle alone, and in darkness.....