I have written about this topic before [among other places], and I have no doubt that I will have to again. Such a complete shame.
Please take the small amount of time out of your busy day to read "KIA in Alabama." In my not-so-humble opinion you owe it to Doug Barber and the tens of thousands of others.
Let me explain something, as a veteran myself of eight conflict
areas, and something that Doug discovered in Balad. The sense that the
world is not a safe place is not a "disorder." It is an accurate
perception. And the sense of meaning many of us enjoy is an illusion, a
cruel construction that normalizes the orderly activity of the suburb
and nurses our children on simple-minded, Disney-fied optimism pumped
through television sets in a relentless datastream.Post-traumatic stress is not a disorder. Calling it that earns it a
place in the DSM IV, professionalizes and medicalizes this very
accurate perception that the world is not safe, and that life is not a
comforting film convention. Calling it an individual "disorder" cloaks
the social systems responsible for experiences like Vietnam and Iraq.
And it renders invisible the fact that Douglas Barber was not merely a
suicide.…
When that wordview, that architecture of meaning, collapses in the face
of realities like convoy Russian roulette, and women holding babies up
to prevent being shot, and daily stories of slaughter by the people one
sleeps with, the profound betrayal of it is not experienced as some
quiet, somber sadness. It is experienced like bees swarming out of a
hive that has been broken, as a howling chaos. So we quiet it with
marijauna, alcohol, heroin, and even shotguns.
See also: A Soldier For Truth Has Fallen: In Memory of
Specialist Doug Barber
I really should comment on this story, but Stan Goff has already done it so eloquently. My thoughts are at the first link above, along with links to many other related stories from a few months ago. I can add nothing new at this moment except to keep this issue fresh in your mind, and to shed far more tears than I already have, knowing full well that there are far more to come.
Original story found at A Night Light.
Update: Sorry, but I meant to link to this bibliography on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and the Military (PDF; 212 KB) Found at ResourceShelf.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Angel // Jan 22, 2006 at 4:55 pm
What irked me about the story, if “irked” is even the right word (at least more polite than a few other choice words) is the observation at the end about how they always go recruit the children of the poor in places like Alabama, or ethnic minorities. I just recently read an article on the impact of militarism on the Latino population, and this just made me think more of that. The warmongers are more than happy to send someone else’s children, but God forbid they actually send their own. I am not even going into the disgusting way that those who do return are treated, which is shameful to put it mildly.
2 Mark // Jan 22, 2006 at 5:10 pm
Yes, Angel, it is a complete shame! The US Army, and the US military in general, used to be (is it anymore?) held up as the epitome of racial integration due to the great strides made in the late 70s and the 80s.
Now I wonder if the decision was made for the ‘right’ reasons or only because they realized they’d be able to send more of the poor and disenfranchised and less of “their own children?” I know that’s a bit conspiratorial. No matter, the outcome is a complete shame.
3 ...the thoughts are broken... // Jan 22, 2006 at 7:21 pm
My Neighborhood
The decision to post this came about due to a comment from Angel on my post from yesterday, One more destroyed life. How many more? The following originated as an email to a friend of mine, Gina the anthropologist, after an incident at a discussion for…