It's Thanksgiving Day. We all know what it means to us and the traditions we have. What we fail to remember is that it was the American Indians compassion that provided us with the bounty. Most Indians regard this day as Genocide Day. Yet these Americans come to the rescue over and over again. They are still doing it with their ancient healing for the war wounded warriors.
American Indian wisdom could help non-Indian war veteransBy Laurie SwensonBemidji Pioneer
A scholar of American Indian studies wants to see American Indian rituals inspire non-Indians to develop their own rituals to welcome home war veterans and help curb post-traumatic stress disorder among war veterans.
“This is a critical part of our history,” said Larry Gross, a visiting scholar at Bemidji State University. “We have these veterans coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Gross, who has a master’s degree from Harvard University and a doctorate from Stanford University, is a member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe enrolled with the White Earth Band. He is conducting research in the Bemidji area on storytelling and cultural survival among the Anishinabe. Part of his research includes the writings of Jim Northrup, a noted Anishinabe writer and a Vietnam veteran affected by PTSD.
Gross and Northrup presented a joint lecture Thursday night for about 40 people in BSU’s Crying Wolf Room, the first installment of a series sponsored by A.C. Clark Library. The lecture was arranged by Ron Edwards, university librarian.
“When I look around Indian country, Indians have their ways,” Gross said, noting that Indians welcome home veterans, honor their service, reintegrate them and make use of their experiences, but non-Indian communities do not have similar rituals.
“I have a vision,” he said. “My vision is that by the time the Minnesota National Guard unit comes back from Iraq in July … churches all around the state will have these rituals set up. I’m hoping to find people who will work with me on this.”
He also envisions a national movement that would bring a Veterans Day ceremony to the Washington National Cathedral.
Battling memories
Northrup’s talk Thursday was peppered with humor, which he said is another survival tool in the ongoing battle against post-traumatic stress disorder.
“I had PTSD before I knew it had a name,” he said. “I knew I wasn’t the same person I was before I went there.”
Northrup, born on the Fond du Lac Reservation and who lives in Sawyer on the reservation, entered the U.S. Marine Corps after high school in 1961. He went to Vietnam in September 1965, serving with India Company, 3rd Battalion, 9th Marines.
http://www.rlnn.com/ArtMar07/AIWisdonCouldHelpNonIndianWarVets.htmlTRAUMA & METAMORPHOSIS II: ART AND POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER (PTSD)HISTORY OF PTSD
There is documentation of PTSD in medical literature of the American Civil War (a similar disorder was called “Da Costa’s Syndrome”).
Soldiers in our Civil War who developed PTSD were said to have “soldier’s heart” or “nostalgia.” Freud’s pupil Kardiner was the first to describe the symptoms that came to be known as PTSD in the scientific community. But the first to “specifically diagnose mental disease as a result of war stress and try to treat it” were the Russians during the Russo-Japanese War, 1904-1905.In World War I, PTSD was called shell shock. It was named by medical officer Charles Myers, as it was initially believed to be a physical injury to the nerves due to close proximity to bombs, etc. The symptoms included sympathy pains (seeing/inflicting a gruesome face injury resulted in a person developing tics in their own faces, for example).
During World War II it came to be known as battle fatigue. Throughout both world wars, developing knowledge of the condition, its causes and treatments was slight at best and fraught with misunderstanding. Both the military command and medical professionals were highly skeptical of it, to put it mildly. Military leaders felt that a soldier’s first battle should “steel the combatants against any ‘future stresses’”.
Civilians, leaders and doctors could neither understand nor sympathize with those suffering, and believed combat stress reaction (the military’s term for PTSD) was due to the sufferer’s weakness and/or cowardice.PTSD was brought to the world’s attention as a legitimate disorder only after Vietnam veterans vocally insisted on the condition’s recognition. The veterans’ success can mostly be seen in the disorder’s addition to the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)...and the reason that PTSD is mostly associated with them. For years, it was actually called “Post-Vietnam Syndrome.” It is this inclusion in the American Psychiatric Association’s DSM that brought the research and recognition of medical professionals that allows them to successfully diagnose and help treat those suffering from PTSD.
http://www.nvvam.org/education/trauma/historyptsd.htmThey helped us out throughout history. This is a picture of some Code Talkers.
