Parents-soldiers will need your help!

Time Magazine reports-

"For the first time in history, a sizable and growing number of U.S. combat troops are taking daily doses of antidepressants to calm nerves strained by repeated and lengthy tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. The medicines are intended not only to help troops keep their cool but also to enable the already strapped Army to preserve its most precious resource: soldiers on the front lines."

This is what one combat sergent discovered after some heavy missions...

"LeJeune visited a military doctor in Iraq, who, after a quick session, diagnosed depression. The doctor sent him back to war armed with the antidepressant Zoloft and the antianxiety drug clonazepam. "It's not easy for soldiers to admit the problems that they're having over there for a variety of reasons," LeJeune says. "If they do admit it, then the only solution given is pills."

... any drug that keeps a soldier deployed and fighting also saves money on training and deploying replacements. But there is a downside: the number of soldiers requiring long-term mental-health services soars with repeated deployments and lengthy combat tours. If troops do not get sufficient time away from combat — both while in theater and during the "dwell time" at home before they go back to war — it's possible that antidepressants and sleeping aids will be used to stretch an already taut force even tighter. "

These kids coming back will have several issues to deal with. May of them simply won't be able to coop on their own. Much less to try and get their lives back to normal. Adding drugs to the mix may effectively hide symptoms, but don't be fooled. They will need extra time, care, attention and love to aid healing. (At a time when they may accept it from you least.)

Take care of yourself first, so that you can be your best, calmest, most loving self, in order to start to help them find a way out of the downward spiral they may find themselves in. To help both you and them-look into complementary health alternatives as a way to assist the mental and physical healing. Reiki, aromatherapy, cranial sacral, reflexology, EMDR, Quantum Touch, the list goes on and on. And though the healing stories may be largely antidoctal-the vast quantity of them is to large to ignore!

Our favorite is EFT www.emofree.com. It's inexpensive, it can be done over the telephone, can be done in groups or alone, with or without the help of a professional, (although at first we recommend finding an expert practitioner) and has no side effects. Once you learn how, the whole family can use it.

Illustration by Lon Tweeten and D.W. Pine for TIME

Smells are key links to healing PTSD

The olfactory system (the sense of smell) is the only sensory system that is connected directly to the brain. Other senses must pass through the thalamus and be routed to the brain. Because of this the sense of smell has a powerful emotional impact on us.

Knowing this there is no mystery about why odors such as cordite or blood trigger delayed reactions in returning veterans.

It is also the reason that certain odors are just as powerful in calming emotions. Aromatherapy is another inexpensive, effective, and seldomly used aid that can help heal soldiers who suffer from the effects of combat. When it is correctly used-there are no side effects, it can be used anywhere, it's easy to use, and the price of a good quality essential oil (and that's all you should be using) is far less than an ongoing prescription of Xanax or Zoloft. Contact a local massage therapist or aromatherapist for more guidance on how essential oils can help.

Alpha Company hit hard by post-traumatic stress resulting from combat

By Tom Infield-Philadelphia Inquirer-staff writer
Of all the things that Alpha Company has had to struggle with since it came home from Iraq, the most pervasive may be post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.

Of the 126 veterans interviewed or surveyed by The Inquirer, almost half - 46 percent - said they had been treated for PTSD, most at VA hospitals and clinics in the region.

Alpha's rate of PTSD is higher than that of most U.S. troops who served in Iraq or Afghanistan - partly, no doubt, as a result of its being a frontline combat unit that lost six men.

Shelley M. MacDermid, a Purdue University professor who served on a Defense Department mental-health task force last year, said typical PTSD rates among returning veterans were about 14 percent.

"Those are big numbers," she said of The Inquirer's Alpha findings.

National Guard and Reserve units, in general, have shown slightly higher PTSD rates than have regular Army units, she said.

The Defense Department task force said this might be in part because civilian-soldiers were separated after they returned home, rather than staying together as units in which the members could support one another.

Ira Katz, director of mental-health services for the Department of Veterans Affairs, said that among the 300,000 or so veterans who have been seen by the VA, about 20 percent have been diagnosed with PTSD.

But he said that twice that number - about 40 percent - have had some "mental condition."

"That's not all that different from your [46] percent," he said.

Both MacDermid and Katz said that PTSD had become a popular shorthand for all sorts of emotional symptoms that veterans experience. These may include depression and anxiety disorders, but not rise to the level of PTSD.

Steven Silver, who recently retired as director of the inpatient PTSD unit at the Coatesville VA hospital, predicted that as time went on, more and more combat veterans would be shown to have the high PTSD rate Alpha now shows.

PTSD, as a term, has been used only since 1980. World War II soldiers talked of battle fatigue. In World War I, it was shell shock.

Silver said that both the military and the VA had become more aggressive in warning troops about PTSD and getting them treatment.

He said that although Alpha's rate was high, "in some ways, it's good news. It means that people are coming in for help." (I agree this is very good news, it may be we are approaching a time of new understanding of this trauma. Which means we HAVE learned something from the Vietnam vets who suffered alone so terribly.)

(unfortunately however...) PTSD typically is treated with psychotherapy and antidepressant drugs, including Zoloft and Paxil. (which treats the symptoms but not the causes)

About two-thirds of Alpha veterans have received care at VA hospitals and clinics - for PTSD, physical ailments, or both.