Tanks a Lot

We do not err because truth is difficult to see.
It is visible at a glance.
We err because this is more comfortable
--Alexander Solzhenitsyn

I can't control my buried thoughts
the slightest thing makes me distraught
I'm like the people I once fought
my every action's being bought
--Cold Life, Ministry

milgram's 37
we do what we're told
we do what we're told
we do what we're told
told to do
--We Do What We're Told,
Peter Gabriel
________________

A continuum 0f "Rocket Man":

Also in the ward was an older man who had a consuming, debilitating fear of tanks, as in armored fighting vehicles. He was obsessed and terrified that one was going to get him and run him into the mud. Remember that this was a VA psych ward and the patient was a combat veteran.

His attending psychologist (a different one from the previous piece) joked about this fear, using it as a teaching point in class when discussing psychotic behavior. Ranger then asked two questions:

"Are you a veteran, and have you ascertained if this patient fought at Anzio or the Battle of the Bulge, where Nazi tanks actually ran over U.S. Infantrymen?" To both, the answer was negative. So a psychologist in the VA system did not have a clue as to the reality that possibly destroyed a veteran's mental stability -- he never entertained the thought.

Though the VA health care system is much vaunted for its efficiency, it employs many people who fail to grasp the plight of veterans. The patients constitute a unique population, and if misunderstood, risk being warehoused for behaviors which are outside the purview of those of the general population.

That has been 35 years ago and I wonder whether anything has changed since those dark days . . . the time before soldiers were the heroes in every guy's video games; the time when the U.S. lost its first war.

I really do wonder.