Comments from 14 April

colspt said…

Phillip, were you a POW in Nam? The men of that war were of my generation and I have the utmost respect for those who served, and especially for those suffered that fate and what it took for them to survive it.

A close friend of mine watched helplessly, from his position high up on a mountain top in Laos, as some of his friends far below were captured alive. He was very active in the MIA cause, because he knew those men were alive and he knew there were others too. God knows what those men suffered and some may still be suffering for all we know.

Yes, for those who went through that and made it back home, to say the experience changed them would be an understatement, but I'm not sure that continuum would be an apt description either. Maybe it is, if you lived it who would know better?

I guess to some degree mental wellness or unwellness is a sliding scale, but unless there is an abrupt change, there should still be some mental balance.

All I was trying to say is that Einar's scale of balance has waaaay slipped. He is a danger to himself and to the people around him. I was in no way trying to denigrate anyone in real life who may have had similar life experiences.

There are medications that can help with situations like Einar's, but he doesn't have access to that kind of help, and probably wouldn't want it if he did, but still my question is can he really come back from something like that? If one's brain chemistry is that far off can it recover?

colspt, I know you were never trying or intending to put anyone down, and I thank you for further clarifying that. I think it’s probably just good to keep in mind that everyone has had different experiences, and it’s not necessarily useful to try and over-simplify things or define what the inside of anyone’s mind “should” look like, based upon what we know of them. It’s a very individual thing.

As to the use of medications…sure, there are drugs which can disable brain function to the degree that one may stop, to some extent, exhibiting “undesirable” thought patterns and behaviors while under their influence, but neither Einar nor his biographer believe in the use of chemicals to alter one’s state of being or way of relating to the world. I’m pretty sure Einar was always very careful to steer clear of individuals and organizations who might wish to push him down that path, even before circumstances made such “help” inaccessible.

Will Einar ever be “normal” again? I don’t know. Was he ever? What is “normal?” People’s minds function differently from one another--thankfully; what a dull world it would be if that were not so--and I have never found humanity’s attempt to apply labels to these different ways of functioning and subsequently to seek and sometimes even attempt to force conformity to some mediocre and safe middle ground be a particularly useful, just or productive endeavor.

Which probably doesn’t answer your question, but hopefully it does inspire further thought…

Thanks for reading, and for joining the discussion.

Philip said…

colspt, I understood most of what you wrote NOW, in your first Post!

read that twice, if necessary.... no belittlement meant, or accepted from both posters in this thread, I welcome you HOME, and understand your position, Very Well... ;-/

Here is a do not reply question, for oneself to contemplate on:

What is a POW? No, not the usual sense... we all understand ~that~

Rather than focus on you, me, or even Einar, with tears in my eyes, I will again mention my friend (Now Resting in Peace)....

Sp/6 John Sharp, He was near your AO, flying inside the slow bird... RTO to B-52's.... $25,000 bounty on his head, or other crew members of Forward Observation Aircraft.

John died, a POW... in ~Florence Oregon~. When he took his own life, to end the war inside himself. I placed his (donated) Coffin Flag, over his door, per Regs. A Marine E-6 RVN, 65-66 & I Triangled it, 72 hours later. Later, I climbed aboard a Grey Hound Bus, destination: Washington DC, Viet Nam Memorial, to lay him to rest there.

His Bamboo Cage crafted much worse, than any an NVA/VC could craft. Einar escaped the Bamboo Cage built to hold him.

John never could. I was his Patient Advocate at Roseburg, Oregon VAMC.

Before that, I drove, his Cadillac to Roseburg, (many times), for his mental health Check In's. We left there one day, and his random comment, was..... from that part of his mind where the RTO ~lived~.... "I want to call in a B-52 Strike on that place"...

my reply was "let's get some distance from it, before you do" HE THEN SAID: "you don't understand, I will call the coordinates.... where I stand, in the center of that (profanity omitted) place....

John, like THOUSANDS of other troops, never really came home... ~whole~ I saw the regimen of Anti-Psychotics they gave him... to no avail, I was there when after being calmed down to a "level", he requested a three day stay in the rubber room, Section 8,

he understood, then, that he was a danger to himself, and others....

There are many POW's.... I do not think I am among them....

But I know a couple people who would argue that.... One, whom I entitle "SHE, who must not be named" was in her own way, a cruel to me.... as Bud is, to Einar....

But then, ~I know HER Life Story~ Like Bud Knows Einars.

Christ that was a very thoughtful ~Thank you~ what can I say, Brother, back at you, for this tremendous saga, of a man, His Mind & his LIFE.

for All: Last year, I re-watched the movie, "Brother Sun Sister Moon" filmed 1972, Italian Director.... It is on the Life of Francis of Assisi. AKA ~St. Francis~ although I believe (Bionically Speaking) that all who profess Jesus Christ as Lord & Savior are saints (read Paul's Epistle's)

I speak of this movie, because I feel it is The First MOVIE to deal with PTSD... Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.

Watch it, Please, see how GOD healed Francis.

Yours in Brotherhood,

philip

Philip, I thank you for your words, and will be remembering your friend today, John Sharp, a warrior who is now at Peace as none of us can be, who are still here in this life. After reading your post four times, there’s just not much more I can say right now or in public, so I’ll simply say, once again, ~thank you.~ God bless you, my friend.

~Chris

(By the way, I have seen that movie about St. Francis, and I, also, found it to be very much worth watching.)