The Common Ills: Smearing veterans with a tired old tale dressed up for modern times

Thursday, February 26, 2015

Smearing veterans with a tired old tale dressed up for modern times

"Can PTSD Be Linked to Violence?" asks the always idiotic Jessic Pishko as she proceeds to link the two at Pacific Standard. Fortunately, she had to shop this crap around because even outlets who usually publish her nonsense looked askance at this garbage.

Using narrative -- as opposed to statistics (there are no statistics to prove her case -- no scientific ones) -- Pishko portrays veterans as ticking time bombs set to go off at any moment.

And not just today's veterans, you understand, but veterans of past wars. In 1998, a Vietnam veteran was pulled over by police and got into a shoot out.

Post Traumatic-Stress and Traumatic Brain Injury are seen as the signature wounds for veterans of the Iraq War and the Afghanistan War.

So when Pishko smears veterans as a ticking time bomb, she's flinging her feces at a very large group.

As with any segment of the population, violence is possible.

And when it happens with veterans, it may result from PTS and it may not.

Pishko smears far and wide applying her feces as far back as Homer.

No one is safe from her attacks.

Again, PTS is one of the signature wounds of current wars.

We call it PTS here -- as do most who actually care about the issue.

It is a condition.

Calling it a "disorder" has applied a stigma which has prevented some from getting needed therapy.

As we've long explained, it can be seen as hypervigilence -- the mind and body on overdrive. Which is natural and needed when your are in a fight-or-flight area or theater for a prolonged time. It is your body adapting to the location and to what is needed to ensure your survival.

And some people can turn it off and leave it behind. Others will need assistance, they'll need to be trained with techniques to address it -- ideally, techniques, some will need medication but too many will be medicated just to say the condition was 'dealt with.'

Into this climate comes Pishko with her article linking it to violence and to violence aimed at others.

Again, we've noted as long as we've been online, when veterans demonstrate violence, the overwhelming number doing so turn the violence against themselves with destructive behaviors.

But Pishko writes an alarmist article that smears veterans as ticking time bombs who will explode in civilian society and attack those around them.

It's nonsense. It's outrageous.

And it's shameful.

There were about five other topics I thought I'd be covering this morning.

But the knee-jerk reaction and lie to paint veterans as Pishko has done is just too damaging to not address it strongly.

What she's doing has been done in the past and pre-dates the recognition of PTS.

It's harmful to veterans and tries to portray *them* as damaged goods unable to adapt in society.

It does real damage.

Veterans of today's wars have noted this false stereotype can cause *real damage* even when it comes to something even as basic as getting a job.

I am glad so many outlets turned down Pishko's fecal attack on veterans. I just wish all outlets had the common sense to refuse to publish it.

The following community sites -- plus McClatchy Newspapers -- updated: