Do Veterans need to be 'Deprogrammed'?

[LilCerberus]

Strange days indeed.
I was discussing unemployment these days with someone.
They were all supportive when I brought up some of my own hurdles as an educationally challenged person, then I brought up how some veterans were being denied employment because they 'might' have PTSD.
Then my friend said the employers were in the right, that all veterans were programmed to be psychotic.
They then spent they rest of the argument trying to pretend they didn't say that, and that all veterans needed to be 'deprogrammed' before being released back into society.

The thought of this worried me, because as a slow kid, intervention & reprogramming become constant fears.
Taking someone out of the workforce, taking away their sense of purpose, saying they'll never be good enough because they're defective or damaged is never the answer.

[Alex]

Every military attempts to make all its front line soldiers killing machines, this much is true.

After that, the argument kind of falls apart.

Thing is that training will only go so far. Even with the best training and indoctrination in the world, only about 14% of a military force is actually capable of killing someone. As far as PTSD goes... well just about everyone seems to be able to claim they have that these days. Hell you can get it from the death of a pet. I am expecting to hear of someone being diagnosed with it after a traumatic house moving experience.

This is an area myself and Kristi has discussed a lot with each other, how our respective countries treat its current and ex servicemen and women. Some areas one country does better than the other and visa versa. Mental health care for UK troops is one area where the USA has to do some catching up. I find the idea of refusing to help someone who has put their life at risk for your benefit somewhat disturbing.

Anyway, I have to go just now, but I'll write more later.

[Alex]

Back now.

Anyway, how does an employer know that the person they are interviewing isn't a serial killer, kleptomaniac or some other issue that is going to cause them problems. If you are looking at employing someone from the military, then you are looking at someone who is punctual, knows how to follow orders (and depending on rank, trade and branch, taught how to think for themselves and improvise. Some areas people are taught purely to follow orders, but I digress).

My guess is that the person who thinks veterans need to be deprogrammed is a moron who has never been in that situation and is talking about an area they don't understand. The US used to have a program where they dealt fairly brutally with people they didn't think were good enough (which in some states if I recall correctly ran until some time in the 80's). Hopefully the country as a whole has learned a lesson from its failed eugenics program and won't go down that path again. I have a mentally handicapped younger sister that I am expecting to spend the rest of my life caring for should anything happen to my mum. If anything was tried in the UK about 'programming' people who don't fit in that way was tried, you'd find me on the barricades protecting them.

Anyway, lets hope the world never goes back to practises like this again, and the places where it is still happening learn the mistake they are making.

[RCMerchant]

Our President needs to be re-programmed to act like a human being with emotions . As it is now, he's a greedy selfish out of control meglomaniac. That motherf**ker should have been screened! For something! A lot of his followers are tin foil hat wearing freaks! Trump translates to me as a alien lizard man... 

[Allhallowsday]

I am not proud of the way veterans are treated by the government.     I think healthcare offers solutions. 

[Alex]

[ER]

They think everybody has PTSD.

[LilCerberus]

They think everybody has PTSD.

So do I, and I never served. It may sound petty to most folks, but mine was caused by fifteen years of being shoeboxed by the public education system.

Most of the veterans I've met in support groups were in for the same thing I was, A good old fashioned metabolic imbalance, whereas the ones I've met in the workplace found coping skills like 'normal' people....

[ER]

They think everybody has PTSD.

So do I, and I never served. It may sound petty to most folks, but mine was caused by fifteen years of being shoeboxed by the public education system.

Most of the veterans I've met in support groups were in for the same thing I was, A good old fashioned metabolic imbalance, whereas the ones I've met in the workplace found coping skills like 'normal' people....

I dunno, man, you do f**ked-up s**t and the message seems to be, "We expect you're a mess now." Well, why? Why isn't it a normal reaction to be strange afterward, and yet you're not always broken or dysfunctional? If you need help, yes, absolutely get it, screening for it is also a good thing, but to have a generation of mental health professionals trying to pigeonhole everyone who served by saying one automatically harbors a stress-related illness for having been through service is insulting and an awfully broad exercise in stereotyping. Some of the hardest killers I've met are perfectly fine. If what you've been through leaves you changed, maybe that means you're normal for you. Everyone's different, though, and at least the stigma that used to surround needing help is largely lifting. The lucky people are those who CAN openly talk about what they've been through; who aren't gagged.

Bottom line: if you honorably serve(d), you're a hero and don't ever let anyone, friend or foe, tell you otherwise. Need help, get it, but don't tolerate being told you're automatically, unavoidably damaged by your service.

[Allhallowsday]

It could be a pampered society demanding answers.  And this culture is eager to sell its solutions.  Solutions are peddled

[LilCerberus]

It could be a pampered society demanding answers.  And this culture is eager to sell its solutions.  Solutions are peddled

Now that you mention it, It reminds me in a weird way of that 'epidemic' back in the '80s of clinics popping up all over the nation that didn't really treat teenagers with depression or drug problems, just warehoused them for as long as the insurance would pay for it.....

[Svengoolie 3]

It could be a pampered society demanding answers.  And this culture is eager to sell its solutions.  Solutions are peddled

Now that you mention it, It reminds me in a weird way of that 'epidemic' back in the '80s of clinics popping up all over the nation that didn't really treat teenagers with depression or drug problems, just warehoused them for as long as the insurance would pay for it.....

Yes,  and a lot of those kids ended up with real PTSD from wrongful imprisonment and mental torture,  and had permanently xxxxed up lives...