war fever
It used to be called ‘war fever’. Now, it is known as PTSD-Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. There was a time when there was no cure, only short-term relief. Today, that could be changing, as war-stressed veterans have endured decades with no answers, just symptoms. There is no chemical relief for this ailment, but that hasn’t stopped thousands of people from trying every known way to fix the problem. Addictions abounded in this field.
Science and psychology are merging in a new way to uncover the places that harbor such trauma for these ex-soldiers. We still have living soldiers from World War II. Few escaped the wrath of war fever at some point in their travels. All the survivors of all the wars that have been fought face the same misrepresentation. We put out a section out of time, we change all the rules about what it means to be a decent human being, and then we change the rules again and we don’t expect backlash. War Fever is that reaction. One day killing is wrong. The next one is celebrated. The more, the better is the motto of the war. Genocide. Eliminate the enemy. Collateral damage is expected.
The best minds in the fields of science, physics and chemistry were used to create mass killings of our ‘enemies’. Einstein discovered a technology that could very well end humanity’s walk on this planet. But no one has invented a mindset that humans can buy into and justify taking the life of another, let alone many other lives. We are not programmed to destroy ourselves. Some (our soldiers) had to be taught that and their minds are burning up of the idea of it.
A soldier who flew with the Cottontails in World War II brought war fever to Medina, Ohio when he returned. It was my grandfather Ralph Warren Hisey. Shot down over Ploesti, Romania, he came across a dead British soldier while hiding in the brush. He changed his clothes and wore the uniform of that RAF (Royal Air Force) pilot to fool the Germans into thinking he was English. It worked until he was taken to the prison camp and his ‘boys’ yelled “Hisey, this way!”
Fast forward a couple of decades, and I wake up at dawn and look outside to see my grandfather standing in the field. I thought he was waving at something, so I went outside and stood on the fence. I realized that he was dropping something.
He saw me and called me and told me that he kept himself sane in the prison camp by practicing his pitch all night, in the barracks, in the dark. “Hitler didn’t own this!” he said as he pointed at his head. “The Nazis never owned my mind,” the soldier said. Over and over again, he practiced his pitching form and did all his drills on those concrete floors until he got too weak.
When he returned to the US, he was a shadow of himself and barely strong enough to work. His dream of playing professional baseball became a long lost thought.
War fever gripped him for the rest of his life. Nightmares of torture at the hands of the Nazis came to him randomly. A feeling of helplessness that he said he couldn’t describe would take over him. Sometimes just the smell of cabbage provoked it. He fought the Germans in his mind for the rest of his life. they never released him.
Now a whole new kind of ‘technology’ is being introduced through a combination of medication and a kind of guided meditation/talk therapy. Returning to the scene to re-experience the damage has been done for years with mixed results. Returning to a controlled, but altered state can lead to better responses and resolution of the experience. This can only be done with a guide.
Our current fight in faraway places is producing a new brand of PTSD that has resulted in additional loss of life. Back on American soil, safe and at home, soldiers continue to kill in the name of war. They are killing their immediate families as they wake up fighting for their lives.
Perhaps the new techniques will bring relief and peace of mind to the generations of war veterans who live among us and will continue to do so for years to come.