Grrrr Update on "Passengers Pin Man Charging Cockpit"

[wakeme2008]

From today's Tampa Tribune... http://www.tbo.com/news/metro/MGBXBPJGDPE.html

Quote from his brother

Reached by phone at his Tampa apartment, Cordero-Mendez declined an interview but said: "He asked for help while he was in the Army. They didn't give it to him. Now this happened."

:grr:

[napi21]

1. That's a sad but frightening story!

Next thing we know, the Feds are going to want a mental screening of all airline passengers!

[BlueCollar]

2. as an airline employee

I'm thinking mental screening of passengers might be helpful...

:hide:

[Greyhound]

3. As long as they start with the airline CEO's, I'm fine with that.

:rofl:

If anybody needs their head examined it is the idiots that have utterly ruined the industry. They couldn't have done a better job if that was the intent from the beginning.

[niyad]

4. that would mean * could never fly commercial!!

[BlueEyedSon]

5. uhh... like he does anyway...?

[Catchawave]

7. He was traveling with a family member?

Did he try to stop him from disrupting this flight?

I agree about mental screening, but it should be up to a family member to give the crew a head's up?

At least he didn't yell "bomb", this may have been a more tragic result.

[gratuitous]

6. The Army can't afford to provide post-bellum mental evaluations

Defense contractors don't come cheap, and while we're flushing a billion dollars a day down the maw of the defense budget, an extra $500 for a shrink for some GI who can't adjust to the horrors inflicted on him? Too bad, so sad. But George W. Bush raised an extra $1.1 million with his little trip to Illinois!

[tirechewer]

8. Sounds like....

a classic case of PTSD to me. The military refuses to provide help for the soldiers affected by PTSD either while they are in the service or when they are discharged.

This is really sad and puts a lot of soldiers at risk long after their fighting is over. PTSD raises the risk of suicide and long term depression exponentially. These guys need help and treatment, not indifference and neglect.

[opihimoimoi]

9. Yup, as a person who has a Nam Vet in the house(not related)

affected by PTS, it disturbs me greatly the Pubs have a get lost attitude when it comes to this issue.

The troops are pawns in the Pub Chess game of domination and exploitation....

[tirechewer]

10. This administration is....

using the troops and mistreating them in so many ways. It is mind boggling to me how they ignore the difficulties that the soldiers are having physically, emotionally and logistically, and still heap blame on them whenever anything goes wrong. I don't find it surprising, though. Bush and using people are like bread and butter. I just think that the way he treats the troops is about as low as he can go, and he just keeps finding new depths to sink to every day.

[Lisa]

11. I was in the hospital for tests yesterday, and the man next to me ...

... was at least 80 years old. He was crying and whimpering with fear -- having a flashback to either WWII or Korea. (This was in Canada -- just a normal downtown city hospital, not like the VA facilities in the States.)

The staff brought him a blanket and juice, and tried to comfort him, but he was off in his own world. Those wars were more than half a century ago, yet he was shaking and near-collapse -- to him they were yesterday. I wondered if he'd experienced D-Day, or the heavy fighting up the boot of Italy -- or if he'd been unlucky enough to be taken prisoner after Hong Kong fell. The sounds coming from his alcove were so pitiful, I wanted to push aside the curtain and just hold his hand ... except that, if he'd fought in the Pacific, seeing an Asian person right than might make things worse!

Some of the troops coming home from Iraq might be in pain for 60-70 years -- imagine going through hell every night, for half a century or more.

[tirechewer]

12. I understand what you're saying.....

My grandfather fought in World War I. He was in the trenches and inhaled some mustard gas through his gas mask at Ypres. He came home coughing up blood, lungs blistered and scarred, his physical health destroyed. He also came home with what they now call PTSD. Then they didn't have a name for it. He lost his family, and his children because of his erratic moods and long, dark depressions. He was never the same man again. The only time I ever saw him laugh was when we took him to the beach. He said it wiped the cobwebs out of his brain and he felt free again.

PTSD is an illness that is caused not only by wars, but by enduring and seeing things that human beings simply cannot endure. Victims of prolonged abuse, crime and disasters, both natural and man made, can also suffer from PTSD. The people of New Orleans are suffering from PTSD in great numbers now. I read an interview by a mental health professional who said that they are not getting the treatment they need. She described some of the afflicted children she had seen. They were suffering from depression, panic attacks and a sense of overwhelming dread and terror at being separated from their families. The illness is treatable, but this government is so indifferent to human suffering that they simply don't care about any of us, military or not.

If you are not treated it can last all your life. My grandfather drank to self medicate but he had his terrors up until the time he died from leukemia when I was very young. Thank you for feeling compassion for that man. So many people don't. I can easily imagine the Iraq vets and what they will have to endure without treatment. This war is unbelievably horrific. I read about the carnage and their daily exposure to the unthinkable and I cannot imagine how they survive as intact as they do.

[Lisa]

13. at the time, the medical establishment and the government ...

... tried to dismiss what was happening to the veterans. It's really awful, reading old medical texts from the early 20th century, which basically accused any soldier suffering what we now recognize as PTSD of "malingering", or outright cowardice! They even executed men on that charge, in WWI.

The fact that people had been traumatized by their experiences was pretty general knowledge (so many novels after the war, ranging from Dorothy L. Sayers's "Lord Peter Wimsey" mysteries, to "Lady Chatterley's Lover", discuss this in a lot of detail -- and they didn't have to make up examples, because many families saw them firsthand, as with your grandfather). But the authorities couldn't or wouldn't admit that there was a problem. My mom, who worked in public health for a number of years, said that based on how many cases she'd seen, she suspected the number of veterans who drank themselves to death was as high as, or even higher, than those killed in action or incapacitated by wounds.

I caught myself thinking, how many people (including me) would have quickly walked away from that man I met in the hospital ... if he had been lying on a dirty sidewalk instead of clean linen, out of his mind and raving about unspeakable terrors? How many died like that?

At least the medical professions have changed their outlook in the past half-century ... but there are still those in government, and in the military itself, who cruelly mock anybody who goes in for psychiatric treatment. I was talking with someone who was with the Canadian peacekeepers in Bosnia, who was appalled when some of his colleagues labelled someone with PTSD a "pussy" and "on the crazy train". That might have been enough to stop some of the other guys from seeking help.

And what you say about the civilian populations ... I totally agree. I received a report from Doctors Without Borders last year, describing how mental illnesses are just slipping through the cracks, in areas which are experiencing wars or disasters.

[tirechewer]

14. One of the saddest things is...

PTSD is very treatable. I had a psychologist tell me once that if you can get the sufferer to open up and speak of what happened you can help them establish coping mechanisms that will get them through the worst of times. Medication for the depression and anxiety is also very helpful and improves the ability to cope if the patient is severely affected. He told me that with regular treatment there can be an improvement in as little as a year. The patient will always have to cope with PTSD but it will no longer be impossible or overwhelming.

The Veterans' hospitals used to have groups for vets with PTSD where they could receive group therapy and they used to offer individual therapy. Bush shut that down. He closed many of the clinics that were a lifeline for returning veterans to receive counseling and help. In one case a man who had been receiving help had it cut off abruptly by such a closure. He had no money for private treatment. He killed himself on his porch with a gunshot to the head in front of the police who had come to find out why he was behaving erratically.

I've seen the stigma attached to mental and emotional conditions and I think it is both sad and shameful. There is so much evidence that illnesses such as depression, bipolar disorders, schizophrenia and panic disorder are caused by imbalances in body chemistry, or genetics, or a combination of both. Even if this was not the case, everyone reaches a breaking point. It varies from person to person, but expose a human being to enough stress and they can't help but be vulnerable to it. There is no shame involved. The wounds may not be visible like a broken leg with a cast on it, but they are real and deep and deserve the same compassion as any other injury or illness.

I know what you're saying about the homeless on the streets. I used to give a homeless guy on the way into my job food and coffee. He had been a Vietnam vet and after he came home from the war he had worked at a series of jobs that he could not hold because of the PTSD that came home from the war with him. His drug of choice was wine and a lot of the time he went hungry and cold. Sometimes he would be standing and crying silently and sometimes he would be raving but he always responded when I tried to comfort him. I had to stop working when my MS got so severe that I could no longer function, but I still wonder what happened to him.

I think of all of the victims of the war in Iraq. The soldiers who fight there and the Iraqi population which has been so traumatized that they will never, ever recover. I think of being a citizen of the country responsible for yet another generation of such misery and I am simply sickened, even though I never did support Bush and those like him, and I do everything I can to try to stop them from doing more harm than they have already done. My grandfather used to tell me that he believed in Hell. He believed that it was his life on earth. When I was a child I wondered what he meant. Looking around me at wars and suffering and the people who cause it, I find that I do understand what he meant after all.

[Lisa]

15. "Bush shut that down. "

That pretty much sums it up, doesn't it! Stinginess, ignorance, and just plain unthinking disregard. He's had his fun, playing soldier and milking those military photo-ops for all they were worth.

A couple of years ago I had the honor of meeting the Canadian general who commanded the UN force in Rwanda. He was in a very bad way with PTSD after he got back, and at one point he went missing and later turned up sleeping on a park bench. He later wrote a book about his experiences, and was very open and candid when I saw him. He said we have to get to the point where everybody, not just the troops, is comfortable talking about it. As you say, PTSD can be treated, and very successfully too (which is amazing and very hopeful, considering what terrible things he witnessed in Rwanda). He has resumed a normal life, and is now serving as a senator in Ottawa (in the Canadian system, our senators are appointed) -- but of course he can never forget what he lived through.

Anyway, after meeting him, and also that poor man in the hospital the other day, I think I am starting to see what your grandfather meant, about Hell.

[tirechewer]

16. Your General sounds....

like a fascinating man, and a very wise man too. Whether he is appointed or not he still carries a lot of responsibility and that brings with it stress which he is able to manage because he got treatment. Do you remember the name of his book? I would like to read it. If it is out of print there are booksellers who can find used books where I could most likely still locate it.

I understand the Canadian system of government sort of.;) A kind Canadian woman in another forum I used to write on explained it to me in great detail until I was able to grasp it. (C'mon brain! ;) )

After I sent my reply last night I became aware that I had forgotten to tell you that I was sure that you would not turn away from a homeless person in need. It was one of those major brain fades that you regret until you get a chance to correct it.

If you wish to read more about my grandfather I wrote about him and his experiences with the war and PTSD on a peace blog my husband and I maintain. Here is the link. http://platypuspool.com/blog/platypuspool/?p=14#more-14 The entry is called "The War to End All Wars." PTSD is a trauma that reaches out touch the whole family and it ripples out to touch future generations if it is not treated.

[Lisa]

17. more about General Dallaire

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/dallaire/

Senator Dallaire now, I guess, since he has retired from the military, and this is his new job. After having met him, I can say that he is very dignified and yet soft-spoken and approachable. He was not at all stiff or belligerent (not like a certain retired officer down the street from me, who did not attain anything near the rank of General, and did not experience combat or genocide!). One of the others in the group, a teenager who was interested in peacekeeping and was thinking of joining the Canadian Forces, asked the Senator for his opinion -- and he just opened up and was so enthusiastic. He became quite animated, and told her how happy and proud he was of her. It was very moving, because despite all the terrible things he saw during his service, he evidently still believes in peacekeeping ideals.

His book, "Shake Hands With the Devil – The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda", just came out in paperback a while ago. It's a rather harrowing read, but I'm glad I finished it, because it explained some of the things which, because of time constraints and the frightening nature of the material, the author was unable to tell us face-to-face. There is also a documentary film out, with the same title, which follows him on a trip back to Rwanda. I don't know if it's been released commercially or broadcast in the US yet, but I have seen DVDs of it.


Thanks so much for the link to your blog!

[tirechewer]

18. Thank you for......

the information on Senator Dallaire. I am going to get the book, and I'll keep an eye out for the documentary as well. I told my husband about the Senator and he's going to read the book too. It's a subject we have been interested in for a long time.

It's beyond comprehension how most of the world could sit on its hands and watch what happened in Rwanda without offering more meaningful help to prevent the atrocities which took place there. I've noticed that this is usually the case with countries in Africa. They get the least amount of help and relief and they get it last. Particularly from the US government. No wonder everyone hates us so much.

You're welcome for the link.;) Please come by and visit often.