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POPSThe PTSD Nation - America the Traumatized This breaking of the national psyche was bound to happen; it's been decades in the making. American exceptionalism -- the idea that we are somehow better and more blessed than any other people on the face of the earth -- was bound to fail as our nation, like every other before it, found itself caught in the grinding wheels of history. The 2000 election, 9/11, Enron and WorldCom, Afghanistan, Iraq on a lie, Abu Ghraib, the USA Patriot Act, Guantánamo, Katrina and near economic collapse: each of these -- and many, many others -- challenged our sense of national identity, giving the lie to who we thought we were, and compromising a sense of safety, however delusional, that we once enjoyed. No longer were Americans exempt from the perils that face other nations. sneaked up behind us and whacked us in the head.
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POPSService and Homecoming With PTSD: A Vet's Story This article is worth reading in its entirety. The honesty and vulnerability of the author is most unusual and insightful. More from the article below: " I want everyone to know that I appreciate all the support our country has given the troops. I received packages in Iraq from schools, Boy and Girl Scout troops, Rotary Clubs and other volunteer groups. I really appreciated all the effort and time that went into trying to make our lives there a little bit better. So for all the problems I have, feeling supported is not one of them and I want to thank you all for your support. Just understand that none of us came back the same as when we left."
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POPSPTSD & Faith-Based Initiatives At the VA
More from the article below: "The story of the mistreatment of returning veterans from Iraq is well known and shocking. But the role of religious ideology in that mistreatment—how, inside the government, it was a potent tool in the betrayal of an overwhelmingly Christian Army—is much less known. “I couldn’t stand to hear that phrase any longer—‘God was watching over me,’” Benimoff wrote. Sullivan explained to McLendon and the other attendees that the rise in benefits claims the VA was noticing was caused partly by Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who were suffering from PTSD. “That’s too many,” McLendon said, then hit his hand on the table. “They are too young” to be filing claims, and they are doing it “too soon.” He hit the table again. The claims, he said, are “costing us too much money,” and if the veterans “believed in God and country . . . they would not come home with PTSD.” At that point, he slammed his palm against the table a final time, making a loud smack."
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POPSCamp Lejeune whistle-blower fired But instead of being praised for preventing what might have been another Fort Hood massacre, Manion was fired by the contractor that hired him, NiteLines Kuhana LLC. A spokeswoman for the firm says it let Manion go at the Navy's behest. The Navy declined to comment on this story. Manion says the April incident with the two Marines was just one of a series of disturbing events and serious problems with mental healthcare he saw at Camp Lejeune, a base that may be best known for a water contamination scandal that led to high rates of cancer and birth defects among Marines and their families who lived there. He was particularly concerned to see that troubled Marines were stricken with the overwhelming impulse to commit suicide or murder, telltale signs of severe combat stress.
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POPSInterviewing an American-Egyptian Marine More from the article follows: What about the fact that he was a psychiatrist? He was probably treating guys with PTSD and there’s a lot more overt racism in that crowd than there is in the rest of the military. Talk about that. Well, your average service member is not particularly racist and not necessarily more racist than your average American. But in order to go be involved with killing large of other human beings, you have to dehumanize the enemy, and the easiest way to dehumanize them is to racialize them. In my experience, they’re much more prone to talking about "f** hajji’s," if only "these f** hajjis wouldn’t be here, this wouldn’t have happened."
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POPSTim McGirk, friend to the Taliban and promotor of the 'secondary PTSD' defense for the murderer Hasa Noah Pollak at Commentary has discovered that Mr. McGirk has a rather interesting history: This shouldn’t be surprising coming from Tim McGirk. He went to Afghanistan after 9/11, had Thanksgiving with the Taliban, and wrote a long piece for National Geographic about what a great time he had and how we’re all just human beings doing our thing on this big blue marble, so let’s not judge. Then he went to Iraq and singlehandedly created the Haditha Massacre hoax. Then he went to Jerusalem and spent a few years slandering Israel. Now he’s trafficking in pop psychology on behalf of a likely domestic jihadist. It’s been quite a career.
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POPS Lucid Links 11.09.09 Only when you get to Obama’s page do you learn that Obama a) wasn’t president, and b) didn’t make any speech at the site of the Wall last year when he campaigned for the U.S. presidency in Europe. In remembrance on the 8th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on Washington and New York, our president …. sent Joe Biden to Ground Zero in New York City. Deliberate ignorance: The British press was out front (HT Hot Air) in telling the world that the perpetrator of the Fort Hood attack “worshiped at a mosque led by a radical imam said to be a ’spiritual adviser’ to three of the hijackers who attacked America on Sept 11, 2001.” That the attack was jihad-inspired is not open to real dispute. Meanwhile, the PC-addled American press does all it can to minimize the enormity (HT Mark Finkelstein at NewsBusters) of what occurred at Fort Hood and makes excuses for the perpetrator, even to the point of claiming that he might (even though he never experienced
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POPSWe want the truth behind the 9/11 attacks
Something doesn’t make sense. 700+ engineers and architects, 200+ pilots and aviation professionals, 400+ professors all question the official account 9/11. http://patriotsquestion911.com/ 956 architectural and engineering professionals and 5,369 other supporters have signed the petition demanding of Congress a truly independent investigation. http://www.ae911truth.org/ These are not nutcases. These are highly educated infividuals who have expressed significant criticism of the 9/11 Commission Report or have made public statements that contradict the Report. Building 7 http://www.wtc7.net/ is a controlled implosion. This building was never touched by an airplane. The building fell straight down. The only way a building falls straight down into its own footprint is if the structure was carefully prepared to fall straight down. The U.S. government is asking us to believe something that defies physical laws. Don’t we want the truth? http://www.truthjihad.com/
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POPSMilitary Service Training Ground For Sexual Predation This article is quite comprehensive in scope and deserves a full reading. A few more paragraphs from it follow this remark. "Yet for decades, in spite of the terrible numbers, the military has managed with astonishing success to get away with responding to grievances like Krause's with silence, or denial, or by blaming "a few bad apples." But when individual soldiers take the blame, the system gets off the hook. And it can be shown that the patterns of military sex crimes are old and widespread -- for generations, military service has transformed large numbers of American boys into sexual predators. So it seems reasonable to ask if perhaps there is something about military culture or training or experience that can be identified as causative, and then, perhaps, changed."
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POPS連續穿顱磁刺激 人類大腦的前額'是調節行為的中樞，並控制衝動、反射性動作的發"。使"連續穿顱磁刺激或直流電刺波等非侵襲性刺波上側處前'大腦皮質方式可影響決策、增加健康人的意--力及反省能力，同時也可'制--人對'精、古柯鹹、尼古丁"至食物的渴求，這樣的--人已知有決策力障礙的問題，這治療有可"在許多精神疾--、情'疾--、焦慮、過動--、創傷後--候群、--物濫"、抽煙'肥胖的--人，增加他'認知調節的能力。
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POPS"Sit! Stay! Snuggle!": An Iraq Vet Finds His Dog Tuesday 
Click through for the video. More: Tuesday is with Mr. Montalvan at all hours. Taught to recognize changes in a person's breathing, perspiration or scent that can indicate an imminent panic attack, Tuesday can keep Mr. Montalvan buffered from crowds or deliver a calming nuzzle. Other dogs, typically golden retrievers, Labradors or Labrador retriever blends, are trained to wake masters from debilitating nightmares and to help patients differentiate between hallucinations and reality by barking if a real person is nearby. "Tuesday is just extraordinarily empathetic," said Mr. Montalvan, 36 years old, a retired Army captain who received a Purple Heart for wounds he suffered in Iraq. "In bad moments, he'll lay his head on my leg, and it'll be like he's saying, 'You're OK. You're not alone.'" …At Mr. Montalvan's apartment -- decorated with his Purple Heart and Bronze Star certificates, and pictures and paintings of Tuesday -- they sleep in the same wooden sleigh bed.
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POPSBitterness as Mental Illness? More: "Embittered people are typically good people who have worked hard at something important, such as a job, relationship or activity, Linden says. When something unexpectedly awful happens -- they don't get the promotion, their spouse files for divorce or they fail to make the Olympic team -- a profound sense of injustice overtakes them. Instead of dealing with the loss with the help of family and friends, they cannot let go of the feeling of being victimized. Almost immediately after the traumatic event, they become angry, pessimistic, aggressive, hopeless haters. Linden suggests that people once known as loving, normal individuals who suddenly snap and kill their family and themselves may have post-traumatic embitterment syndrome. That's reason enough for researchers to study how to treat the destructive emotion of bitterness."
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POPSHow brain chemicals can help soldiers keep their head
most potent protective factor, however, is a neurotransmitter called neuropeptide Y (NPY), which binds to receptors on neurons in the prefrontal cortex and alters their response to noradrenaline, acting as a brake to its accelerator pedal. The most intriguing implication of Morgan's research, however, is the suggestion that supplementing levels of DHEA or NPY could enhance soldiers' ability to think straight in the heat of battle - and perhaps also offer some protection against PTSD. The brain needs a large amount of energy to function, and in the food and sleep-deprived SERE trainees, the glucose proved effective at boosting their mental acuity. The following morning, those given the carbohydrate drinks performed significantly better on the Stroop test (Military Medicine, vol 174, p 132). Giving troops energy-rich drinks is one thing, but the idea of intervening with drugs to enhance military performance is more controversial, as reactions to another proposal have shown.
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POPSFemale Vets Struggling to Get Treatment for PTSD The veteran's service organization Swords to Plowshares says female Iraq war vets are the fastest growing population of homeless. "There numbers in terms of homelessness is growing exponentially. There are very few services for them because homeless veterans services, VA services have grown up serving a male cliental," said Swords to Plowshares Amy Fair-Weather. These vets are hoping sharing their stories through pictures and books will help make the road to recovery easier for the women currently serving in Iraq.
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POPSSoldiers left to fight the war within Again history is ignored. Those in charge know what the Vietnam Vets went through and the problems that were a result of the lack of attention. It can only be deliberate neglect which is a crime. Howard and his cronies are responsible for not fixing this situation after they committed to Iraq.
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POPSchild abuse & silent witnesses Child abuse 'impacts stress gene' Child abuse has long-lasting effects Abuse in early childhood permanently alters how the brain reacts to stress, a Canadian study suggests. Analysis of brain tissue from adults who had committed suicide found key genetic changes in those who had suffered abuse as a child. It affects the production of a receptor known to be involved in stress responses, the researchers said. The Nature Neuroscience study underpins the impact of stress on early brain development, experts said. Previous research has shown that abuse in childhood is associated with an increased reaction to stressful circumstances. Whilst these results obviously need to be replicated, they provide a mechanism by which experiences early in life can have an effect on behaviour later in adulthood Dr Jonathan Mill But exactly how environmental factors interact with genes and contribute to depression or other mental disorders in adulthood is not well understood.
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