[Info-vax] OT actors being treated as their screen character Was: Re: Nice printers for OpenVMS?

[Bill Gunshannon]

In article <fvdpf9-o54.ln1 at news1.chingola.ch>,
	Paul Sture <paul.nospam at sture.ch> writes:
> On Sun, 12 Aug 2012 14:23:06 +0000, ChrisQ wrote:
> 
>> On 08/12/12 11:42, Paul Sture wrote:
>> 
>>> Our parents generation really did want to forget about it for the most
>>> part.
>>>
>>>
>> That's because of the real loss and mental damage experienced by so many
>> families.
>> 
>> There was no concept of ptsd or any of the other ism's in those days to
>> help explain the psychological damage and to provide routes for
>> recovery. You were just expected to resume normal life as though nothing
>> had happened. Thousands of civilised men came back from the war so
>> damaged by what they had seen, that they never recovered.
>> My father was perhaps one of the more lucky ones, but was always
>> reticent about his experiences and would not go into any detail at
>> all...
> 
> The only time my father talked about it in any detail was when Gulf War 
> Syndrome was in the news.  He claimed that he had seen no evidence of any 
> such thing in his time but I think selective memory was probably at work.

Maybe not.  My experience only goes back to the Vietnam Era but it
stretches from 1968 when I joined until 2011 when I retired.  I have
long held that it was the change in training that has resulted in the
increased numbers of people having problems.  During Vietnam it was
mostly draftees who, as you might imagine, didn't really take their
training seriously who had the most problems.  After Vietnam the
training was made much more politically correct.  Thing that outsiders
called "brainwashing" were eliminated and that resulted in an Army
with a lot of people who would say things like: "we were in a fire-
fight last night.  There was a  lot of shooting going on.  I sure hope
I didn't hit anybody."  Yes, I actually saw someone say this to an
"embedded" reporter during the first gulf war.  And, I frequently see
pictures of people holding their M16's or M4's in ine hand and shooting
it over a wall without even looking at where they are aiming.  Couldn't
really do that with the M-14. :-) and we were taught to actually try to
hit our targets.  Sadly, this is an Army of people who all asked to be
there.  Of course, that brings up the other problem.  I have seen people
in an "All Volunteer Army" interviewed by the press who said: "This isn't
what I joined uip for."  Just what did they think the Army did???

Selective memory?  Maybe in a a couple of cases, but I don't think in all
of them.

bill 

-- 
Bill Gunshannon          |  de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n.  Three wolves
billg999 at cs.scranton.edu |  and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton   |
Scranton, Pennsylvania   |         #include <std.disclaimer.h>