George Shirley > wrote in
:


> In WWII and Korea PTSD was called combat fatigue but was basically the
> same syndrome.


Combat fatigue, battle fatigue....... during WW1 it was called
"cowardice" and people were shot/executed because of it.

As a Section Commander in the Infantry in the 80's, we were taught to look
for the symptoms of "battle fatigue" in our troops.
It wasn't till the "Pony Soldiers", 1RAR, came home from Somalia in '93
that the diagnoses of PTSD was first used for Aussie troops. That was the
trip that they lost Shannon McAliney who was accidentaly shot and killed
while on patrol.




> My eldest brother-in-law was a Navy medic assigned to the
> USMC, he was in almost continuous battle from early 1942 until he was
> wounded severely enough to be pulled out of battle the day before VJ
> Day. My sister didn't get to see him until mid-1946 and he wasn't
> discharged to go home until early 1947. He had what we used to call a
> Section 8 discharge. He was jumpy at loud noises, very protective of
> family, to the extent he would throw his wife and daughter on the ground
> and cover them with his body if he heard anything resembling a gunshot
> sound. He was a good man who died at age 61 from chronic alcoholism and
> too many cigarettes, he died two months after being diagnosed with
> pancreatic cancer, brought on by booze and smoking according to the
> doctors.
>


A 10 part 'mini' series called "The Pacific" just finished up here last
night.

It was all the more poignant for the fact that it was based on real
people, some still alive.

It seemed, at the end, that the guys who went through the worst of it, all
died a lot earlier than those that didn't.


--
Peter Lucas
Brisbane
Australia


A good friend would drive 30 miles at 2:00 am to bail you out of jail.
A best friend, however, would be sitting in the cell next to you saying
"Man, that was f******n Awesome!"