The Military Epidemics That Aren’t

The Wall Street Journal:

There is a growing presumption in the West that war dehumanizes those who experience combat, or, in more extreme expressions, even those who only serve in the military. In this country, for example, journalist Robert Koehler writes of war itself as a “disease,” one that produces a nearly infinite variety of violent “symptoms.”

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Compared with other countries, the United States diagnoses PTSD cases at improbably high rates. Recent PTSD rates in the U.S. have reached as high as 30%, according to the Congressional Budget Office. By contrast, only 2% of Danish soldiers deployed to Afghanistan (and, per capita, the Danes have done as much fighting as anyone) are diagnosed with significant PTSD symptoms, according to a study published in December in Psychological Science. One consequence of high rates of PTSD diagnosis is that the treatment is too often conducted outside a military environment. Soldiers are deprived of what traditionally has been the best medicine: talking to other soldiers.

Read the whole story: The Wall Street Journal