Battlemind is the US Army’s latest attempt at training and then addressing psychological issues faced by soldiers coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan. It lumps all problems into a nuetral and army-like acronym, PTSD. The resulting website is at once chilling and revealing. Here’s a few excerpts:
Reality check for pre-deployment:
Facts of Combat:
• Combat is sudden, intense, and life threatening.
• It is the Soldiers’ job to kill the enemy.
• Innocent women and children are often killed in combat.
• No Soldier knows how he/she will perform in combat until the moment
arrives.
• All Soldiers are affected.
Despite the good natured tone of this paragraph, this sounds like a serious and real problem:
“After a combat deployment, many service members talk about feeling like they need to have a weapon on them to feel safe. The key is remembering that at home there is no enemy trying to kill you. Don’t carry a loaded weapon in your car. If you do, that’s a sign the transition isn’t going so well. So watch out for yourself and your buddies.”
In training, Battlemind is a psychological approach to getting a soldier ready for combat and is actually an acronym for a variety of states of mind needed in combat. They’re using the same approach to then “de-program” vets after deployment. It gets pretty twisted.
Here are the intended effects along with post-deployment consequences:
Battlemind concepts for soldiers:
Buddies (Cohesion) Vs. Withdrawal
Accountability Vs. Controlling
Targeted Vs. Inappropriate Aggression
Tactical Awareness Vs. Hypervigilance
Lethally Armed Vs. “Locked & Loaded” At Home
Emotional Control Vs. Detachment
Mission Opsec Vs. Secretiveness
Individual Responsibility Vs. Guilt
Non-Defensive (Combat) Vs. Aggressive Driving
Discipline & Ordering Vs. Conflict
Ok, that seems reasonable because it directly correlates with their training. But I don’t see how the spouses would have any desire to follow this sterile and vague program, especially since they didn’t have the initial training as a reference point.:
Battlemind for spouses:
Buddies (Social Support)
Adding/Subtracting Family Roles
Taking Control
Talking it Out
Loyalty and Commitment
Emotional Balance
Mental Health and Readiness
Independence
Navigating the Army System
Denial of Self (Self-Sacrifice)
After surfing the net for responses to the program, I got the sense that vets are glad to at least have these issues acknowleged:
I hope that it simply makes people more aware of the issue of PTSD; one of the things that holds people back from getting any sort of mental health assistance is that they feel “different” or “damaged” in ways that other people “can’t understand”… telling them that they’re not alone may help them to seek help.
Ultimately, I feel like the Army has produced the ultimate anti-war testament with this program. It’s good that they’re confronting (on a basic level) the realities of what vets face when they return, but in doing so they’ve shone a bright light on why we shouldn’t send them over there in the first place.
