Diatribune

I did a search Here, the very popular Progressive interactive blog, and found 1 posting on Camillo “MAC” Bica's third installment on PTSD, his PTSD: Beyond PTSD, Part Three The Moral Casualties of War, War Crazy

That posting was by philos1 and can be found Here. It was posted Wed Jun 20, 2007 at 01:15:24 PM, I didn't see it when I got home from work a couple of hours later, my guess is it sunk rather quickly, as it only had Two Comments and Four People Recommended.

Apparently philos 1 isn't one of the In-Crowd or belongs to the Right Clic to get noticed, or like myself not a writer, but a moral being trying to put in others faces reality. Can't tell how many read 'Mac's' third installment but I give philos 1 a lot of credit for trying to get others to see 'Mac's' thoughts, and use their Critical Thought abilities, hope enough did, if not, like I have above, "Let's try this again".

'Mac' is a fellow Vietnam Veteran, also a fellow member of Veterans For Peace, if I'm not mistaken also a fellow member of Vietnam Veterans Against The War and more recently, as myself, Veterans For America, and unlike me he's a Professor in New York City.

philos 1 writes

In this installment of Beyond PTSD, in the hope of providing a more complete picture of the psychological, emotional, and moral impact of war, Professor Bica offers, not theoretical analysis, but personal observations regarding the aftermath of war. In doing so, he asks the reader not to think so much as to feel.

Mac writes

In part one and two of this study, I spoke to you analytically as a philosopher. Now you will hear poetically from the veteran, the victimizer and the victim of man’s inhumanity to man.

And I too will post up Mac's reality poem and ask that you Think as you read each section.

War Crazy

Throughout my adult life,
I have thought myself a free spirit,
a philosopher mendicant,
seeking an alternative, more substantive, lifestyle.
So many others, however,
see my unorthodoxy, my “spiritual seeking,”
as abnormal and a clear indication of my insanity.
Perhaps I need to pause and to reevaluate my life.
After all, being insane is not something one readily admits.
I guess it’s part of being crazy to cling to a facade of sanity,
to think oneself normal and everyone else insane.

How do you think about yourself? And how do others perceive you?

One thing I am certain of, however,
I haven’t always been crazy.
Wasn’t born crazy.
I think insanity crept up on me,
happened in Vietnam, in the war.
War does that you know, drives people crazy.
Shell shock, battle fatigue, soldier’s heart, PTSD,
all that killing and dying can make anyone crazy.

And we know far too many who suffer the nightmares of their experiances from Man's War's on it's fellow Man. And we have far too many people, never experiancing the Trauma of War's, but have gone through their own Experianced Trauma's, to numorous to list. And we completely forget the Trauma of War to the People of who's countries we, and others, invade. Instead we consider it another on the list of Colateral Damage if any think of it at all!

Some survive war quite well, they tell me.
Many even benefit from its virtues.
War’s effects, however, are not always apparent.
No one escapes war unscathed, in body and in mind.
All war, any war, every war, ain’t no virtue in war.

Re-read above, and Think that Truth! As 'Mac' says "No one escapes war unscathed".

I think, of those not driven crazy by war,
many were crazy already.
Their insanity, however, was of a different kind,
a hard kind, and an uncaring kind.
I knew people like that.
While I did not like them much,
I thought them fortunate,
as killing and dying meant nothing.
In fact, in a perverse way, they enjoyed it,
enjoyed the jazz, the excitement, the power.
They became avenging angels,
even god herself,
making decisions of life and death,
but mostly death.
Those crazies hated to see the war end.
For me, the war never ends.

I to knew them, sadly.
And what about the ones who never served in a War Theater but readily Beat the Drums for War and are more than willing to send others into harms way, to kill and be killed, calling themselves Patriots, and in our countries case True Americans, while condemning those who question the Failed Policies!
Yet those who Send seem not willing to Take Care of the ones who make it back, not in Flag Draped Coffins, for they don't even want to pay respect to them, but come back maimed Physically and Mentally!

Sometimes things work out for the best, though,
as my unorthodoxy, my being crazy,
probably saved my life.
You see, sane people can’t live like this,
in a war that never ends.
Not all crazy people can either.
Guess I was lucky.
Sometimes being crazy helps you cope.
Sometimes, I wish I were crazier than I am.

Wrap your mind around the above.

Serious introspection has made clear
the foundations of my unorthodoxy,
the nature of my insanity.
It is a cruel wisdom allowing,
no better, compelling a clarity of vision.
I have seen the horror of war,
the futility and the waste.
I have endured the hypocrisy and the arrogance
of the influential and the wealthy,
have tolerated the ignorance and narrow mindedness
of the compliant and the easily led.
War’s malevolent benefactors,
who pretend and profess their patriotism
with bumper-sticker bravado,
with word but not deed,
intoxicated by war’s hysteria,
from a safe distance.
Appreciative of our sacrifices they claim
as they applaud the impending slaughter,
sanctioning by word, or action, or non-action,
sending other men and women
to be killed, and maimed, and driven crazy by war.

We all know them well, you might even be one of them, at least at the beginning of our present fiasco, for if you weren't a supporter, way too many were Silent when you voices and actions were desperately needed!
Those tens of thousands of us who weren't Silent know full well who we are!

And when they benefit from the carnage no longer,
their yellow ribbon patriotism and shallow concern
fade quickly to apathy and indifference.
The living refuse of war that returns
are heroes no longer,
but outcasts and derelicts, and burdens on the economy.
The dead, they mythologize with memorials and speeches
of past and future suffering and loss.
Inspiring and prophetic words
by those who sanction the slaughter
to those who know nothing of sacrifice.

Above speaks for itself in Mac's words, I'd say he isn't the one who is crazy or insane!

I used to try to explain war
to help them understand and to know its horror,
naively believing that war was a deficiency,
of information, understanding, discernment, and vision.
Being crazy has liberated me, however,
allowing me to see
that war is not a deficiency at all,
but an excess,
of greed, ambition, intolerance, and lust for power.
And we are its instruments,
the cannon fodder, expendable commodities
in the ruthless pursuit of wealth, power, hegemony, and empire.

Especially now in this 21st Century. For we have elected representatives and far to many citizens Unwilling o put an End to our present Carnage, for the benefit of only a few Power Hungry Misfits reaping Personal Wealth off the Blood of those they sent and the innocents in the way!
The reps and the citizens Fear their Democratic Duty of holding the Real Insane and Crazy Accountible for what they have done!

Now, I accept and celebrate my unorthodoxy, my insanity,
as an indictment of the hypocrites and the arrogant,
of the ignorant and the narrow-minded
for a collective responsibility and guilt
for murder and mayhem,
and crimes against humanity.
And I offer my insanity
as a presage of their future accountability,
to humankind in the courts of history,
and to the god they invoke so often
to sanction and make credible their sacrilege of war.

And I say 'AMEN' brother, not in the religious meaning, but in understanding exactly where you're at as to those you speak to, for we know them well!

I say to those that read this, you had better start, if you haven't yet, understanding what this country, and those who are serving it, will be facing in the coming years. From the multiple tours in Hell and returning to a mostly apathedic society, to the tens of thousands of those we've created in that Hell that now have the Justified Hatred of us all!

We are now a Country that cannot Critize others for anything they do to their own nor to others, for once again We Have Joined that which we Condemned and once again we did it in 'God's Name', a 'God' I wasn't raised to understand, but a 'God' others have brought into being and falsely used to describe their 'Christianity?'!!

This came in a Newsletter from Common Dreams from their new artist in residence:

'The Negative Is War, The Positive Is Peace'

Natasha Mayers is Common Dreams’ new artist-in-residence.
Read her bio...

__________________________

Bring our Veterans All the Way Back - PTSD