Post Traumatic Stress Disorder--Statistics Are The Real Cost of War

Dr. Mark Goulston is a former UCLA professor who helps high performing leaders, senior management and sales people reach their full potential using skills he learned training FBI and police hostage negotiators. He is a member of the National Association of Corporate Directors and the Worldwide Association of Business Coaches and writes the weekly Tribune syndicated career advice column, "Solve Anything with Dr. Mark" and columns on leadership for FAST COMPANY and Directors Monthly and is an expert at People Jam. He is frequently called upon to share his expertise with regard to contemporary business, national and world news by television, radio and print media including: Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Fortune, Newsweek, Time, Los Angeles Times, ABC/NBC/CBS/Fox/CNN/BBC News, Oprah, and Today. Mark Goulston is the author of The 6 Secrets of a Lasting Relationship, Get Out of Your Own Way: Overcoming Self-Defeating Behavior, Get Out of Your Own Way at Work and PTSD for Dummies. For more information visit: www.markgoulston.com.

PTSD: Not abandoning those who have it because of those who don't and claim they do

The Real Cost of War--Statistics are the real cost of war.

This past Memorial Day I attended services at the Los Angeles National Cemetery and heard former TV star and Marine Hugh O'Brien reiterate that we were there to honor the all who gave some and the some who gave all to protect and defend the rest of us. Honoring those is not enough.

As a baby boomer who didn't go to Vietnam because I pulled 363 out of 365 in the draft lottery ? while my childhood friend, Arthur Stroyman, and high school classmate, Paul Dunne have spent the last 37 years as names on the Vietnam War Memorial. As the father of three children who have gone to nice and cozy colleges ?while my friends Jim and Jane Bright have had to lives with life never being the same again after their son Sgt. Evan Ashcraft was killed in Iraq. And as one of thousands of motorists driving each day through the intersection of Wilshire and Sepulveda Boulevards in Westwood, California ?while a homeless, faceless Vietnam veteran (soon to be replaced by an Afghanistan or Iraq War veteran) asks for money, I think it is not enough to honor those who stepped into harm's way to keep the rest of us safe.

Just because we don't completely understand PTSD, just because we can't wrap our hands around it, just because some soldiers will abuse it to get treatment and benefits they don't need or deserve it, and just because it threatens to be costly to treat because of these and other factors does not mean that we should abandon the many who gave so much and their families who legitimately suffer from this condition.

A philosopher once said that the measure of a civilization is how it treats those who have hurt it. We should add to that another equally important measure which is how it treats those who are hurting in it?especially those who are hurting from having protected the rest of us from harm.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder--From The Inside Out

PTSD--Hello In There