Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (Or Disorder) And Soldiers

[jesmond]

there has been alot of reports about ptsd lately and the fact that there doesnt seem to be alot of support or enough trained people to deal with the issues and problems that having this reveals, so whilst i do sympathise with anyone who has this, it reminds me of the lack of help that my father got after being a prisoner of war with the japanese for nearly 4 years, he suffered terribly for the rest of his life through his nightmares. whilst he seemed relatively "normal" during the day, it was when he slept, or at least tried to, that his demons came back to haunt him, he always said he should never have come back and i think this has been said by recent war survivors. so yes i do have alot of thoughts on this and some that i could not put on here but when someone has suffered with this for 55 years and there is still not enough being done

[anotheoldgit]

Quite agree but it seems strange that this is being brought to light now just because it has effected a female flight lieutenant, this has now alerted the media and the last report on it is that it effects females more than males, which seems strange when they are measures in force to include females in front line duties.

http://www.itv.com/news/2015-03-09/living-with-ptsd-former-military-medic-reveals-how-the-battle-goes-on-for-veterans/

But if it takes this this poor woman's story for some action to be taken by the military over this, then more power to her elbow, just as long it is not classed just a woman's thing, but I really think that they should reconsider women being on the front line.

[jesmond]

yes it does seem to have taken off since the female story came about, i could also mention the monetary value of being disabled due to service but that would open up a bigger can of worms

[Peter Pedant]

or else what was available didnt work ....

The Japanese POWs ( FEPOWs) were well known to have been terribly badly treated. But that doesnt mean that therapy would reverse the after effects. Actually there was a veterans hospital set aside for them ( behind St Pancras attached to der daaah the Hospital for Tropical Medicine ) because all the GPs didnt know what they had brought back with them.

So it is possible that any of the stuff available didnt work

My father had nightmares and relived his German POW camp in dreams, and we all took the view he wasnt ill, but that was the inevitable consequence of being maltreated. We were also ( under the age of ten) all aware that the FEPOWs were in a category of their own

[Peter Pedant]

The question of compensation for FEPOWs has been settled ( by treaty I think ) they all got £11 000.
Please don't say my father didnt - where's it gone ?

[see 2nd para http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far_East_prisoners_of_war]

The German ex POWs got nothing

The fact they are badly scarred by their maltreatment doesnt to my mind mean that they have been ill-served by post war services....

[jesmond]

sorry for not replying earlier. they actually got £10 000 in late 1999 to early 2000, after years of lobbying for this. my dad always said that as a pow you do expect to get some bad treatment but the scale of the japanese treatment was horrendous, it was sheer hell. he would also say that given the choice, he would of fought in europe and not the far east, but thats where he was sent to.