The Army & VA PTSD/TBI Veteran Victims

(MOLALLA, Ore.) - The Smithsonian Magazine in September 2010 just issued one of the best articles on the stress of combat on those who are in the fight of it.

It is based on medical documents from WWI about British Officers suffering from SHELLSHOCK which is most likely severe concussion and/or multiple concussions in which some of the victims end up like PUNCH DRUNK BOXERS and brain injured football players.

Another subject the author Caroline Alexander explores is BATTLE FATIGUE which isn’t fatigue at all. We frontline Infantry were physically exhausted almost all the time. It is really TERROR FATIGUE or BATTLE TERRORS. German Colonel Hans Von Luck, one of their best tank commanders possibly said it best, “anyone who says he was never afraid in combat is a liar.” After the first battle it only gets worse.

A Combat Infantryman KNOWS he cannot survive when all of his close buddies are getting killed off or severely wounded day after day. In Normandy in WWII some Infantry Companies had 200% replacements. In the first 6 weeks we had about 60,000 casualties, one third dead!

SHELLSHOCK, BLAST FORCE or CONCUSSION usually leaves no visible scars but the victim may have reduced visual fields, loss of smell and taste, and loss of memory. Some are mute. Some are in a coma. Trembling, headache, tinnitus, poor concentration, and sleep disorders et cetera, are common.

The British Army seemed to have a strange way of treating this. Officers were sent to rehabilitation hospitals but enlisted men in the hundreds or even thousands were shot for malingering and cowardice. It sounds something like the U.S. Army. Officers were transferred to the rear but their soldiers were heavily sedated for 2 or 3 days and sent back into Combat. Any WWII Infantryman who survived a German Artillery Barrage knows what I’m writing about. There were few officers up front where we were.

American Combat Veterans suffering what we now call PTSD and/or TBI could hope, foolishly perhaps, that the Army, Navy or VA would provide medical care for these victims – bad assumption!! It seems they hand out strong painkillers like Morphine and Oxycodone like M & M’s and anti-depressants like Elavil and Prozac plus other weird medications like epilepsy meds the same way.

These Veteran lab rats frequently give up on the VA trash and resort to the enlisted mans tranquilizers, alcohol or cannabis, and then they are condemned by the VA for being DRUG ABUSERS. This is after many were turned into Oxycodone DRUG ADDICTS by the VA.

One British physician almost guaranteed he could CURE Shellshock (PTSD), which he called “hysterical disorders of warfare”, with electroshock. I cringe to even write about it butit seems to work for some schizophrenics which PTSD isn’t.

One feature that the Army & VA physicians don’t quite understand is that PTSD and TBI are permanent and most heavy combat men and women cannot talk about their experiences except maybe with their own buddies.

It is likely that very few physicians or psychiatrists have even been subject to a heavy mortar or artillery barrage or a fierce firefight. If they did they might think differently!!

More information on the history of Leveque can be found in his book, General Patton's Dogface Soldier of Phil Leveque about his experiences in WWII.
Order the book by mail by following this link: Dogface Soldier.

Watch for more streaming video question and answer segments about medical marijuana with Bonnie King Dr. Phil Leveque.

Click on this link for other articles and video segments about PTSD and medical marijuana on Salem-News.com: Dr. Leveque INTERVIEWS & ARTICLES