Never Escaping War

It is sad to think that someone returning from their horrible experiences in war never truly escapes the war. However, this is exactly what PTSD is.

The video we watched as a class (that I finished on my own) struck me as the most disturbing because I refuse to believe that the affects of PTSD is really the post-veteran’s fault, but it was hard to believe this when you see how much damage they can do. The first veteran, Gast, who killed the man who was on his way to work, ended up in jail for first-degree murder. The judge ruled this way because he said that Gast had been trying to kill himself by crashing his car, and that this was intentionally murdering someone. Gast’s lawyer did not fully mention how Gast had PTSD, and this was why the judge ruled this way. I don’t think this is fair. Although it is a tragedy that the man lost his life, the fact that this was judged as first-degree murder does not seem fair at all. Any victim of PTSD will not be in their right mindset, even when they are not under the influence of alcohol or drugs. When Gast was interviewed later in the movie, he said that he couldn’t believe he was being categorized as a murderer with everyone else in prison who had intentionally shot or stabbed someone, while this was not what he did at all.

The other man in the video had been drunk when he crashed his car into a 16-year-old driving home from work, killing her. I found this even more disturbing, because of how young the girl was. The man was a victim of PTSD and had been abusing drugs and alcohol. The mother of the girl who was killed thought the man should be sentenced to prison, but he was only sent to therapy. One thing the mother said, however, shocked me. She basically said the victim of PTSD should “suck it up” because that was no excuse for killing her daughter. She said that she was a police officer, and that she saw a lot of traumatic things, but she didn’t go around crashing her car into innocent strangers. Although I can imagine this woman was in a lot of grief for her daughter, I think she was being really harsh. I think that PTSD is a serious illness that a police officer cannot relate to. Imagine being in combat and watching fellow Americans get shot, injured and brutally killed, on a daily basis. I can’t imagine a police officer like this woman would be in contact with these things, especially not on a daily basis. One with PTSD cannot just “suck it up,” they need serious therapy.

Even though I don’t think these victims of PTSD should be blamed for the mistakes they made while suffering from the illness, I do think they are at fault for not recognizing sooner that they had a problem, and seeking help. This could have prevented the deaths of these innocent people. It’s unfair how someone who was only trying to help their country by fighting for them should live the rest of their lives with so many problems, and I am equally sympathetic to the post-veterans with PTSD and to the families of the car-crash victims.