It is directly in line with the topic. Thanks for sharing that.

I was hoping ABNDOC might have some insight on the long term effects weighed against the two observable conditions of hardly no down time and modern rotations in high threat environments.

Well, I know for myself, during OIF I, Dec 03 I volunteered to be a medic on a IED clearing, looking, stopping, magnet team. First night out...boom...we got hit...The platoon sergeant stopped the convoy on the X, had everyone dismounted. When loading back up, they hit us. Guy in the turret closet to the IED...took some, man next to me took a hit to the femoral artery and complete loss of his deltoid. I was hit in the chest by a huge chunk of concrete. After clearing my head...I treated all wounded. After a hour break we started all over again...and for the next 8 nights someone on our patrol got hit. Genius right. Point of the story is, when I arrived back stateside Feb 04...we had 4 days of redeployment crap to take care of then, 30 days leave. I drove from NC to MN with my family. About half way through somewhere around Indiana, I physically and emotionally broke down. Not realizing that I had been staring at the ditch for 1000 miles and jumping, twisting at every piece of garbage as we went by. I did take a break after that...and only traveled a 2 hours at a time, because physically at that point in my life, it’s all I could handle. Slowly those effects went away or so I have pushed them away. I went on 2 more deployments after that, with the results being the same upon each return, yet less dramatic in each case. I think hyper vigilance is a good thing in a high threat situation, when you learn to harnass it. After my years in the military, all of my training, all of my experiences, it hasn’t gone away. I’ve just learned when to turn it on and off. I hope. During each of my next deployments, the stress level, the threat, the mission was more intense, yet we grew off our experiences, and we could manage our time tables much better. If we had a bad day, we didn’t go out the next, of course unless someone needed us. We learned as a team, what every member needed to replenish the tank. This is a tough topic to discuss and for many, one they will not address. I have a friend, he is a machine. I believe he is on his 8 or 9 deployment with 160th. But he needs some serious time off. He came to visit me last summer. After being gone for so long, He has forgotten how to function with everyday people. He is so intense, so worked up over everything. I feel bad. He’s not enjoying life, doesn’t have the opportunity to relax and look around. I don’t what the effects of such stress will do to him, but I don’t think its going to be good. I don’t have a degree any of this crap, just my 2 cents, a little of what I’ve gone through. This is probably more therapy for me, then it is answering questions for you.

I thought it might be, though it's best conducted outside the Green Bean or some place similar instead of on the net.

The point I've seen reinforced by your relative experiences (as well as my similar ones) is that our bodies become so inoculated to stress that we're moving into higher than yellow and even orange on a routine basis. We carry the effects of work with us as a survival mechanism I suppose, but that does have a terrible cost on our quality of life.

This isn't about ptsd or the like, but rather, how we're conditioned through stimulus and the repetitive acts of searching for threats.

I wonder how this weighs against the deployments of say Korea or WWII. Was the OPTEMPO then as high or higher now. We all assume that those hard-chargers were in the middle of it every day, but I imagine that they were rotated on and off the line whenever possible. Might have to read up on this one.

Thanks guys. I like the way this shifted a little.

Jody,



Bringing up Korea and WWII, I think the huge difference is the the speed of attack now compared to then. Once in active combat the optempo was probably close, but the time between assaults and battles is definitly different. Troop movement, sustainment supplies allowed for more down time then.
Bringing in also the conditioning factor vs PTSD maybe different between the times periods also.
We continue to train, and deploy. Those old warriors, went once, maybe twice and then returned to be teachers, farmers, doctors. The sustained combat stress never allowed them to be conditioned into this life, but rather a sudden shock to the system, granted some those trips for those guys were 2 years long.

Its sort of the same for the street cops. We are in the crap for 10 -12 hrs a day and then go home for a few hrs. With the 12 hr shifts you get 3-4 days off in a row every week, but its just long enough to start defusing, especially in a rough city or county where you are in a high threat situation daily. The toll it takes on you is slow and deliberate so there are no symptoms, so to speak, to look for...only the disease in its full form at full force.

My situations were NOTHING like what ABNOC described, but they still had a lasting effect. I can only imagine the stress involved with that sort of incident.

I think our LEOs and MILs need a lot more stress management training. Its a huge strain on manpower. Not to mention the "anti-social" behavior that a lot of "sheepdogs" develop after doing their job.

This new "warrior-hate" in our society is a huge stressor for returning soldiers as well. I think we need some "hate crime" laws against that as well. It should be an enhancement to a crime that is committed against a soldier if it is proven that the crime was committed because of the soldier's status or involvment in a conflict.

Its that way for cops. "Assault on a public servant" is one example. We need to incorporate some legal support for our MIL sheepdogs as well.

I know some officers that have been involved in "good" shoots and still couldnt continue the job. One has since left LE and now sells insurance. He said that the incident itself didnt mess with him, it was the following civil suit against him, and the incessant accusations of being a dangerous, violent person that just wanted to shoot a black man. Its created digestive issues and sleep disorders. And he didnt kill the guy, just gave him a couple months in rehab.

Its amazing what stress can do to someone, especially when they are not prepared for it.

"Those who 'abjure' violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf."

My thoughts on conditioning are plain and simple, it works.
It is very hard to "flip-the-switch".
My wife and I will be cruising through town. She's talking about all kinds of things and I'll interrupt her and say "Look, that guy has expired tags".
Or we'll be at the movies and I'll be like "That dude is packing". My wife will run over every bag she sees on the highway and not think twice. Me on the other hand, I'll swerve, brake, position, etc.

I think there should be regular decompression training for LE/MI, rather than situational (i.e. pre/post-deployment). Your mind health and physical health should be a synergy.

Just my opinion.

V/R

Exactly ksleo. I think I will look into that for my H2H training. That is an aspect that is severly overlooked in all combat trianing.

I have several drills where I will put a huge amount of stress on my students during drills. I use extremely loud music, death metal usally, and use a strobe light, along with harsh ridicules, insults and taunts while the student is expected to make it through a predetermined drill that incorporates some fine motor skills. If the drill is interrupted or not executed then the student has some sort of punishment, i.e. pushups, divebomber...etc. This creates a sort of "drive" to succeed, thus creating even more stress and sometimes a little emotion.

I push these drills in order to condition the body and mind to deal with the trauma of combat. Ive always been a believer in "Drills are bloodless combat and combat is bloody drills".

Not once have I ever thought about decompressing after though. I think I will study some decompression techniques, and incorporate the ones I know of to give my students another survival tool. This is not the first thing an officer thinks about after a fight, or chase if it is not a regular training topic. We teach everything we can to our "Sheepdogs" in order to make them more efficient in battle and to survive the conflict, but we never give them anything to use to "turn off" the fight or flight "high". It is always left up to "Father Time" to turn it off and usually with some sort of "dump" that creates fatigue. This may be very usefull in obtaining more detailed and accurate reports from officers involved in violent altercations and pursuits. Hmmmmm....

My department in a shooting incident will send officers on admin. leave until they complete the ASI, regardless of how long it takes.

Whenever I am in a use-of-force, I just do a general arrest report to book the guy. Then when I get back to the PD, I chill out for a bit before even starting an offense report. One thing I love about KS is how the reports are segregated. The arrest report comes under minimal scrutiny for this reason.

Another thing I realized in training is that too much pro-longed stress will cause someone to breakdown and give-up, or become defiant. De-compressing is vital, but grossly overlooked. A scary statistic that supports my theorem on DCT is in 2008 over 100 CHP officers commited suicide.

V/R