PTSD is one of the biggest issues we will face and are facing as our children come back from this war. On This American Life today, there was a special highlighting a veteran who has violently attacked loved ones since returning home. 121, with a statistic in February, returned OEF/OIF soldiers have committed homicide. We cannot forget how this violence is affecting us. This time around***, the intensity of the drugs used in war and upon return has accelerated so much of the problems associated with this “condition.” We do not have the capacity to deal with these issues.
These are the larger consequences of war, it is about the cultural that we normalize, it is about the connectedness to life that at this moment is absent in a larger cultural ethic. We are so alienated from our source of life that we have forgotten how it feels to live wih eachother. How long has this forgetting been present? I feel like technology has facilitated this. I also embrace the empowerment of this technology. But at the same time there is a mechanization that facilitates war. I had a conversation recently about the particularity of that mechanization. The way it removes sentience in a way that is dangerous to the integrity of our humanity. Our humanity is a bridge to the natural world. Culture (generally) is in danger of losing this bridge. The war mentality burns it quickly. How do we cultivate peace? We will need to find enough space for it to heal these children.
***The Vietnam War was the first locale of calling the trauma accumulated in war Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder, in so doing they clinicalized the condition, medicating it and leaving it open to therapy. The availability of appropriate care is lacking do to funding, resources and infrastructure. We were not equipped for the size of the bodies and minds affected in this war.
