"Motss decides to invent a hero who was left behind enemy lines, and inspired by the idea that he was "discarded like an old shoe" has the Pentagon provide him with a soldier named Schumann (Harrelson) around whom he constructs a further narrative including T-shirts, additional patriotic songs, and faux-grassroots demonstrations of patriotism. At each stage of the plan, Motss continually dismisses setbacks as "nothing" and compares them to past movie-making catastrophes he averted.
When the team goes to retrieve Schumann, they discover he is in fact a criminally insane Army prison convict before their plane crashes en route to Andrews Air Force Base. The team survives and is rescued by a farmer, but Schumann attempts to rape the farmer's daughter and the farmer kills him. Motss then stages an elaborate military funeral, claiming that Schumann died from wounds sustained during his rescue."' wiki on WTD
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There is just so much BS out there this year. The meme attack team at Ft. Brooklyn is working over-time to produce an unfavorable meme per day on Trump.
The latest stupid thing is the falsehood that claims Trump said the US military is WEAK psychologically. He did not say that. He said that SOME people exposed to combat stress are not strong enough to bear the pressure. I know that psychiatrists are busy selling the self serving idea that returned soldiers or evidently also those who have never been exposed to combat stress are wounded children. A lot of moms like that idea, but those who have fought know that what he said is profoundly true. Some people are unaffected by combat stress and others crumble at the thought. Others soldier on however much they quake inside. A woman up in Ottawa asked me once if I were one of the crazy brave or the phony tough. I should have asked if she had more options.
"Good ol' Shoe" rides again. pl
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYT39lMdmbM
imagine
Military leaders are managers of violence not diplomats. The more they become diplomats and policy wonks the less skilled nd useful they are as soldiers. pl
Posted by: turcopolier | 06 October 2016 at 08:09 AM
Col.,
I believe that this talk of PTSD is focusing on the wrong people. We should have a conversation on how our educational system has generated a society of damaged snowflakes who cannot handle rude words in a college setting. These folks should not be receiving credentials that start them on a path of civic leadership if they are suffering so badly. Perhaps we should be reforming our colleges and universities rather than our military. After all we haven’t lost a war in a long, long time but we sure seem to be undergoing civil decline. We do fire generals and admirals though I can’t remember the last university president to get fired. Even the one who ran the school into bankruptcy didn’t get canned. Perhaps having a spouse who is a sitting Senator kept that from happening.
“Burlington College, ... once led by the wife of ... Bernie Sanders, ... will close later this month, citing “the crushing weight” of debt incurred during her presidency.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/05/16/vermont-college-that-bernie-sanderss-wife-once-led-is-closing/
Posted by: Fred | 06 October 2016 at 09:19 AM
My own experience with PTSD among my peers is that more and more it's becoming a crutch and Get Out of Jail Free card.
Emotional maturity of a 6 year old? Muh PTSD. Can't hold a job and want to drink all the time? Muh PTSD? Telling me to get over it and that the War was a decade ago? You hate vets!
I see people who didn't do more than a 3 year tour a decade ago still posting pics of themselves in Iraqwith captions "best time of my life" " miss it so much". Good grief, gtf over it.
The Colonel is right in that psychologists and the whole apparatus is designed to coddle veterans and regards them as babies who shouldn't be expected to get through what they saw or think they saw. As someone who had a period of readjustment and moved on, my empathy for those who continue to plead for compassion a decade after Iraq is non-existent. That the mental health apparatus buys into stories of obvious fabulism and exaggeration is part of the problem. That there's a large group of vets constantly looking to be offended doesn't help either.
Some people want to live as victims. "A slave is one who waits for another to free them."
Posted by: Tyler | 06 October 2016 at 11:20 AM
Tyler,
Damned insightful and I agree with your observations. While I still believe mental illness is a serious problem, the inability of so many to accept the fact that life can suck and you have to deal with it is disheartening. I was always put off by VietNam vets wearing often tattered pieces of old field uniforms while older vets wore jacket and tie to such events. SF Association members also stick to the jacket and tie when they appear at public events. It's probably a small, inconsequential thing, but it still bugs me.
Posted by: The Twisted Genius | 06 October 2016 at 08:35 PM
Liza, that's incidentially something I am a little interested in. Thus I somewhat doubt your statement. The epilepsy case referred to is HM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Molaison
One patient does not render empirically reliable data about long-term storage in the brain.
They did and apparently still do all type of stupid things in medicine, if you ask me, like dissecting the corpus callosum. What I found interesting is that they liked to cut a lot in the brain long before they had a sufficiently good idea of its functions. There are still a lot of disputes. But yes, one can study the results.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpus_callosotomy#Corpus_callosum_anatomy_and_function
Without doubt the split-brain patients are interesting to study.
If you put them in a laboratory setting where each one of their eyes sees a different image, when asked what they see, they tell you one thing, while shaking their head. Guess which side dictates and which interferes?
Posted by: LeaNder | 07 October 2016 at 01:47 AM
Without looking, let me guess, one of the males didn't like to be second in line concerning the available females and felt strong enough?
But I am a bit disappointed in Babak, I thought he'd bring more to the discussion then ants. ;)
Posted by: LeaNder | 07 October 2016 at 09:45 AM
TTG,
No, it's the details that make the difference. I guess the modern version is guys who won't leave the house unless they're swathed head to toe in 5.11, Ranger Up/Grunt Style, and sporting "Operator" beards. Laughable.
Posted by: Tyler | 07 October 2016 at 11:05 AM
The Colonel is right in that psychologists and the whole apparatus is designed to coddle veterans and regards them as babies who shouldn't be expected to get through what they saw or think they saw.
tyler, I was close to cite extensively from a 1939 lecture series by an American psychoanalyst printed in 1941, called: The ABC of criminology. But it no doubt would have only picked up on one of my pet subjects. ... in any case the lecture seemed to partly explain an accidental encounter I once had with two nurses, or their conversation, while dining somewhere. They were horrified by one specific type of patients...
Admittedly, I am a fan of psychosomatics or the interaction of body and "soul", if I may choose that term.
Long introduction. I can understand your objections. Yes, there may be a circular movement: academic interest resulting in potential candidates for further studies. And yes, once the movement exists it no doubt can be exploited. ... Will it lead to the development of new drugs that prevent the phenomenon in the future, if the soldiers are not substituted by robots at that point in time. ;)
What I am slightly wondering about is, are the PTSD specialists available for Vets, actually aware of the "shell shock" syndrome? Maybe they are. I wasn't aware of the syndrome over here, only vaguely of studies that looked into it. Seems here they were called "war tremblers". But somewhat I assume, that researchers may only have looked at the same phenomenon over here. Someone shaking doing odd things and apparently quite unaware of it afterwards.
I met one in London, once again in a diner. I was startled, but my friends told me to shut up, ignore it, simply look the other way. They were familiar with the syndrome. One had a teacher who fell under "the spell" occasionally. And there was some type of unspoken agreement among pupils to ignore it. Which was simplified by the fact that the teacher didn't remember his spells either.
The phenomenon is listed on the English Wikipedia under: Combat Stress Reaction:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_stress_reaction
Not to worry, though, case solved, it was brain injury, stupid!
www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2913469/Shell-shock-solved-Scientists-pinpoint-brain-injury-causes-anxiety-stress-social-adjustment-disorders-soldiers.html
Posted by: LeaNder | 08 October 2016 at 07:17 AM