As my fifteen-year-old roommate falls to pieces, panic rises in my chest like a leaping flame. She lets out muffled screams and chilling sobs as she buries her face against the pillow. I kneel beside her and whisper reassurances. “You’ll be okay.” “No one will hurt you.” I pray she hears me but I know she doesn’t. She is trapped somewhere else - somewhere she revisits every day, like a bad song stuck in her head for life. When most people hear “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder”, their minds jump to anxious war veterans. The majority knows PTSD can cause flashbacks, nightmares, and anxiety. Few understand the way it warps your life into something unrecognizable and how it warps you into someone unrecognizable. Performing simple tasks drain you.
A veteran is “a person who has served in the armed forces.” This is the dictionaries definition of a veteran. An unknown author wrote “a veteran is someone who, at one point in his/her life, wrote a blank check payable to ‘The United States of America,’ for an amount of ‘up to and including my life,’” but not everyone has the same definition for a veteran, so what is yours? Veterans have not been treated the best after they have come back home from the military. They could come back home with mental illnesses or disabilities or, for others, they could come home to financial problems. Some veterans end up homeless because they have no money when they get home. Others could end up in depression. Veterans do not just come home and go back to their normal lives like some people think they do. So, for the good of American war veterans and other American citizens, these veterans need improved therapy and treatment than what they are receiving currently.
Over the course of this past year the Veterans Success Center (VSC) has made huge strides in being more visible and more involved with other areas across campus. I wanted to concentrate on reaching the incoming student-veterans so that when they encountered the veterans program it appeared to be far more established than it was, and interaction with it being perceived as a daily opportunity. This meant that we would need to be far more involved with the early processes of becoming a student such as: Premiere Night, SOAR/TSOAR/Preview Day/ Veteran specific orientation and Veteran campus tours. We also wanted to be much more accurate in speaking to our student-veteran population, so we worked directly with the Admission Office to create an
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a relatively new diagnosis that was associated with survivors of war when it was first introduced. Its diagnosis was met largely with skepticism and dismissal by the public of the validity of the illness. PTSD was only widely accepted when it was included as a diagnosis in 1980 in the third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III) of the American Psychiatric Association. PTSD is a complex mental disorder that develops in response to exposure to a severe traumatic event that stems a cluster of symptoms. Being afflicted with the disorder is debilitating, disrupting an individual’s ability to function and perform the most basic tasks.
Coming home to nothing; no help, no support, no job, and no one to talk to about their personal experiences while being deployed. This type lifestyle is something veterans face on a day to day basis. Transitioning back into society can be difficult, but we as Americans should help them make this extensive change. The introduction of the book For Love of Country, written by Howard Schultz and Rajiv Chandrasekaran inspired me to look more into how the American society helps those who sacrifice their lives so our lives can be free. The introduction also helped with the theme of veterans and one topic question. What are the common repercussions of veterans leaving the army and what can American society do to help them?
When humans undergo traumatic events that threaten their safety and wellbeing, they may become vulnerable to nightmares, fear, excessive anxiety, depression, and trembling. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a psychological illness that results from the occurrence of a “terribly frightening, life-threatening, or otherwise unsafe experience” (Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), 2012). This condition often leads to unbearable stress and anxiety. PTSD is significantly prevalent as indicated by data from the National Co-morbidity Survey which shows that at a particular time in their lives, 7.8% of 5, 877 adults in America suffered from PTSD (Andrew & Bisson, 2009). In the general population, the lifetime prevalence is estimated at 8%,
Thank you for serving. I can not tell how glad I am that you served in either the Army, Air Force, Marines, Navy, or the Coast Guard. From any of the wars, WWI,WWII,The Korean War, Persian Gulf War, The War On Terrorism (Afghanistan), the Iraq War, and the Texas Revolution. Thank you for serving. I cannot say how thankful I am that you made the ultimate sacrifice. I have no idea what you have been through in war. I am so grateful that you fought so we could celebrate veterans day, memorial day and all other holidays that only the U.S celebrates.
On the 11th of November, the U.S. observes Veterans Day. On this day, we are meant to honor the men and women who have sacrificed so much of their own lives to serve this country. Whether one may favor the Army, Marines, Coast Guard, Navy, Air Force, or the National Guard, we should all pay our respects to all those who served both current, former, and deceased. But what is the purpose of Veterans Day? And why is it so important to observe this particular holiday?
Veterans Day was started on November 11, 1918. Before it was called veterans day it was called Armistice Day to represent the men who fought in WWI. After the United States went through WWII and the Korean War. The 83rd U.S. Congress amended the Act of 1938 by taking the word Armistice out and put the new word Veterans in place of it to represent every American that served in any war the U.S. has been in. Veterans Day was then moved to be celebrated on the fourth Monday of October, but most States didn’t agree with that decision made, so they tried it and it brought so much confusion when in 1971 it was celebrated on Oct. 25, until President Gerald R. Ford signed a law that states Veterans day will be moved onto the original
Military service members who are and have been deployed to the middle east show high levels of emotional distress and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Both active duty and reserve component soldiers who have experienced combat have been exposed to high levels of traumatic stress. As a consequence, many have gone on to develop a wide range of mental health problems such as PTSD. “According to researchers, PTSD is a long-term reaction to war-zone exposure that can last up to a few minutes, hours, several weeks, and for some a lifetime.” Common symptoms include: emotional numbing, anxiety, feelings of guilt, and depression. If the disorder turns chronic veterans may experience functional impairment (Friedman, M. J. et al., 1994, p.
On the other hand the number, the number of patients with psychiatric disorders is lower for rural veterans then urban, but the rural veterans diagnosed with psychiatric illnesses are sicker than urban veterans (ORH) This is most likely because rural veterans are more unlikely to seek treatment due to pride, this will cause them to be sicker when diagnosed then those who were diagnosed early.
You are a runner and you are fast. In 1934, you set a high school world interscholastic record for the mile at 4:21.2. At the age of 19 you run the 5000 meters in the 1936 Summer Olympics held in Berlin, Germany and finish a disappointing 8th, but run your last lap faster than anyone one in history. Adolf Hitler is so impressed he asks to meet you. In 1938, you run a 4:08 mile. Many people believe that you will be the first human to break the 4:00 minute mile barrier. Your future is bright and your goals and dreams are big: Olympic gold in the 1500 in 1940.
Our friends, our family, our heroes. Our veterans fit into these three categories, so why should 8% of 1500 veterans be unemployed (Maffucci). Why should they have so many financial stresses to worry about on top of their mental health conditions. Also, why is our government not doing everything they can to help the men and women that served to protect us and our country. The government needs to do more to employ our veterans by, reducing their financial stresses, and helping our veterans who have health issues that developed while they were in the service.
War veterans brought PTSD to public attention in the early nineteen eighties, with the lack of knowledge and treatment; planning and specialized mental facilities were not available. PTSD can stem from traumatic incidents, such as mugging, assault, torture, kidnapping or held captive, child abuse, automobile accidents, train crashes, plane crashes, bombings, or natural calamities such as floods or earthquake. The majority of people exposed to such events experience some symptoms of distress (sleep problems, jumpiness). Most fully, recover in a few weeks or months. Therefore, has there been enough accomplished over the past century to help treat veterans coming home with PTSD?
Human resources specialist are missing out on the opportunity to excel and grow within the Department of Defense. Many overlook the opportunity because the career path is long and difficult. Human resources specialist working in areas focused on veteran’s welfare and benefits counseling have the opportunity to not only earn higher wages than those in other industries but also help the growing number of homeless veterans in the United States.
Approximately twenty-five to thirty percent of those who have experienced a traumatic event will proceed to develop post-traumatic stress disorder (Fry, 2016). Those who have experienced a traumatic event and developed PTSD continue reliving it to an extent in which it interferes with their lives. The symptoms of the disorder affect the person’s life by interfering with daily activities and personal relationships with friends and family. There is