PTSD: Not Just for Combatants Anymore
Post-traumatic stress disorder is real. Men in combat experience things that the rest of us can’t really imagine, and it affects them profoundly. Some are made stronger, braver, wiser – others more cynical, vengeful, or fearful. We used to extol the former. Now we diagnose the latter.
For those who have lost sight of the unique value and accomplishments of Western Civilization, there is no true cause to defend. They can only count the cost. For them, PTSD makes a nice narrative. It can be applied universally. Even the most courageous combatant suffers emotionally, so naturally he suffers from some form of PTSD whether he knows it or not. In fact, his apparent mental health can be written off as further evidence of his illness: a cloak of denial that must be stripped away in order to find the PTSD lurking below.
In this way, the left has refined its loathing of the military, choosing to paint individuals within the military as victims – nice people turned into murderous brutes by a sick society.
So instead of having John Kerry slandering his brothers in arms to a Senate committee as murderous brutes, we now have Dr. Phil and other chattering heads painting a murderous brute as misunderstood and driven by external forces to extreme violence. Those external forces are immediately presumed to be military ones. Dr. Phil paints this as entirely rational speculation. At the same time, he calls any speculation that Islam may have played a role as dangerous and irresponsible.
Under the new therapeutic approach, the ultimate evil is the same – the military – but the argument is couched with the false elegance and sensitivity that so enthralls leftists and characterizes their sophistry.
The square peg of Major Hasan, a physician, a mental health professional, who has never seen a day of combat, must be driven into the round hole of PTSD.
Let’s call it pre-traumatic stress syndrome.
I don’t profess to know what really drove Hasan’s rampage. But I do know that it is foolish (nay, calculated) to immediately blame the military for creating this monster while reflexively ruling out any connection to Islam.
