Hidden Battles on Unseen Fronts: Stories of American Soldiers with Traumatic Brain Injury and PTSD

Hidden Battles on Unseen Fronts: Stories of American Soldiers with Traumatic Brain Injury and PTSD

Patricia Driscoll, Celia Strauss

Language: English

Pages: 220

ISBN: 2:00256241

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


Overview

This book is crafted around soldiers' stories of their war experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan that culminate in life-altering injuries to the brain and psyche, along with the equally dramatic story of their recoveries. An irony of America's 21st century wars has been that while our combat medical and medevac capabilities have grown enormously (from a rough average of 4:1 wounded to dead in WWII to 8:1 today), the nature of many of our soldiers' wounds has undergone a subtle change. Men and women who survive the thick of combat, including repeated concussions, increasingly present a difficult-to-detect kind of injury, no less debilitating then wounds from bullets or shrapnel.

This book documents the ever-increasing cases of physical or mental brain trauma among our vets that has risen as a direct result of more soldiers surviving their flesh wounds on the battlefield. The chapters are developed from interviews with troops and their family members, and bridged with essays by mental health professionals, veterans' advocates, and members of the VA and DoD, all of whom are working in the front lines of what is quickly developing into a national crisis of unfathomable cost in both lives and money.

All royalties from this work will go directly to the front line of support for wounded warriors with PTSD and TBI, and their families.

Active Dreaming: Journeying Beyond Self-Limitation to a Life of Wild Freedom

Developmental Influences on Adult Intelligence: The Seattle Longitudinal Study

Iron John: A Book about Men

The Wisest One in the Room: How You Can Benefit from Social Psychology's Most Powerful Insights

Diagnosing Learning Disorders: A Neuropsychological Framework (2nd Edition)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sexuality Educator and Counselor. His years of research at Yale, Rutgers and the University of Pennsylvania have served as the basis for numerous professional, academic and public presentations. He currently serves on the editorial boards of the journals Sexuality and Disability and the American Journal of Sexuality Education and on the board of directors of the Institute for the Study of Disadvantage and Disability and The Women’s Sexual Health Foundation. Dr. Tepper has a Master of Public

Josh’s PTSD proved to be almost as big a challenge as any of his physical injuries. He started having such extreme nightmares that he was given medication so he wouldn’t remember them. Then he started hallucinating when he was awake. “He would stare up at the ceiling and see things floating around in the air. He thought he was captured in Iraq. He would start crying and freaking out. It was horrible. We didn’t know what to do.” Ironically, it was Josh’s PTSD symptoms that Heather used to argue to

was a resounding success. “I always thought that people would follow me to class protesting the war, or penalize me for having a conservative viewpoint. This is not the case at Muhlenberg. Professors and students want to hear your stories and show their appreciation and support regardless of politics. Because of the support of many professors I‘ve succeeded in my classes, with only one B, the rest A or A- and a 3.82 GPA. I feel it’s important to tell people my GPA and the courses I’m taking, not

flooding back as if I was on autopilot. I grabbed the radio: ‘Truck … IED my side’ I heard ‘Repeat.’ ‘Truck… IED…’” The bomb went off before he finished the second call out. “The taste of the dirt and gunpowder are something I’ll never forget. It is still unclear if I jumped from the truck or was blown from it, not that it really matters in the end.” The blast had pierced the fuel tanks located under the front seats, so as he jettisoned from the truck Michael was sprayed with diesel fuel which

and there’s still a lot to be negotiated. The dining room table holds the equivalent of a campaign map; the conversation is all about strategy. The outcome of these sessions will determine the quality of this family’s life for decades. Yet despite the unrelenting stress, Lindsey, 27 and John, 31, remain energetic, resilient and surprisingly optimistic. For them life may not be fair but it certainly is full. A high school dropout (he would later earn his GED), John joined the Army in 1996 at age

Download sample

Download

About admin