Coffee with the Troops

[seemslikeadream]

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=CMDAug5wIVAW

[mike_c]

1. powerful, insightful voices....

K&R.

[seemslikeadream]

2. Crazy for Feeling This Way: Catch-22 Redux

http://www.chris-floyd.com/
Crazy for Feeling This Way: Catch-22 Redux
Written by Chris Floyd
Monday, 20 August 2007
Army Doctor: What seems to be the problem, son?
Sgt. Joe Sarian: I feel like I'm going crazy, Doc! I keep having flashbacks, panic attacks, sudden rages. I can't sleep at night, and if I do nod off, I wake up howling from nightmares. I feel confused all the time, can't remember things, get mixed up. I stay out all night, driving the streets, hitting the bars, and when I do go home to my wife and kids, I scream at them and scare them, or just sit in the basement for hours, crying. I've never been like this before, it's sheer hell!
Doctor: Were you in combat?
Sarian: Combat? Hell, yeah! I did 15 months solid. Street patrols and night raids. Pitched battles. Sniper fire. Mortar attacks when we bedded down. IEDs outta nowhere. Collateral damage: kids, women, old men. Car bombs, whole streets strung with guts and brains. Fifteen months, man, wall to wall. Can you do something for me, Doc? Got some pills? Can I see the shrinks?
Doctor: Sorry, son, there's not a thing I can do. You see, you've got what we doctors call a "personality disorder." That's an ingrained, maladaptive way of orienting yourself to the world. It's a pre-existing condition. You were just born that way -- or maybe your mother did it to you. Either way, it's not the Army's fault.
Sarian: But I wasn't this way before I joined the Army, before they sent me to Iraq!
Doctor: You joined the Army?
Sarian: Yes. I needed money for college and the recruiter said --
Doctor: You joined the Army, knowing they might send you off to a war?
Sarian: Yeah, of course I knew, but I mean, it's --
Doctor: Well there you go. You were obviously crazy from the start. Going to Iraq had nothing to do with it.
Sarian: What do you mean? I was serving my country, trying to help my family. The recruiter said --
Doctor: Look, kid. You'd have to be crazy to join the Army and go to war without realizing that it could drive you crazy. So obviously you were crazy to begin with. So we can't treat you. You're on your own.
Sarian: But the night sweats, the rages, the flashbacks....
Doctor: That's all perfectly natural. Anyone who's gone through what you've gone through and didn't have flashbacks and nightmares and God knows what else -- why, they'd have to be crazy!
Sarian: So...so I'm not crazy, then?
Doctor: Of course not! And that's why we can't treat you. Nurse! Next patient, please.