Healing Combat Trauma

Quotable Quotes -- Sarah Ban Breathnach on Overcoming Adversity

2012-05-04T08:19:58-05:00

Every once in a while we need to be reminded that there is some benefit to struggle. Here's a great quote about keeping perspective on that: "Real life isn't always going to be perfect or go our way, but the...

It's Fundraising February! Please Support Our Work...

2012-02-21T11:08:06-06:00

Healing Combat Trauma turns six (6) years old this month! That's 2,190 days, 52,560 hours, and over 3 million minutes of sustained focus on helping veterans with combat-based PTSD with therapeutic resources and information, focused on integrative medicine and that...

Quotable Quotes -- Tori Amos on the Hidden Courage that Healing Takes

2011-12-23T10:31:48-06:00

"Healing takes courage, and we all have courage, even if we have to dig a little to find it." -- Tori Amos, American singer and songwriter. For more great, thought-provoking quotes about the healing process, read our "Tao of Healing"...

Quotable Quotes -- American Poet Walt Whitman on the True Nature of War

2011-12-13T11:00:00-06:00

Famous American poet Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892), author of "Leaves of Grass," volunteered as a nurse in the Civil War. He is reported to have been profoundly affected by what he saw, and wrote about it in an essay...

Quotable Quotes -- Eleanor Roosevelt on the Human Cost of War

2011-12-08T10:24:45-06:00

As a nation, we've been blessed to have had some wonderfully enlightened presidents -- and in this case, first ladies as well. (See previous quotes by Eisenhower on war, etc.) But in this case, we've got the prayer that Eleanor...

Happy Veterans Day 2011 -- Joe Galloway on the Experience of War

2011-11-11T11:00:00-06:00

"War is about men who love their country but even more than that love each other. I left that battlefield knowing that they will continue to sacrifice for me. There are some events that are so overwhelming you can't simply...

What's Involved with the Art of REALLY Listening to One Another?

2011-11-07T12:49:03-06:00

We've written before on this site about the wonderful adage from Christian existentialist Paul Tillich that "the first duty of love is to listen." With the month of November being Military Family Month (per presidential proclamation last year at this...

Quotable Quotes -- Life is a Journey Sometimes Walked in Light, Sometimes in Shadow

2011-11-02T12:16:26-05:00

The book, "Keep Going: The Art of Perseverance," by Native American writer Joseph M. Marshall III, opens with an extended monologue by the spiritual Lakota Sioux grandfather to his grandson, attempting to help him deal with loss. Here's part of...

Comparing Risk of Suicide in Veterans to Non-Veterans

2011-09-21T12:01:09-05:00

Periodically I wish we were doing a section on this site called "What We Knew, When" because the unfortunate tendency in the world at large, for whatever reason, is to suggest that so little is known about PTSD and combat...

A Nutritional Clue Offers Hope for Military Suicides

2011-09-14T11:00:00-05:00

It's not often enough that we get to report some good news about suicide and the military -- for months now, the numbers have been climbing in the wrong direction, with few notable exceptions to the trend. However, just recently,...

Quotable Quotes -- Dietrich Bonhoeffer on Suffering and Sorrow

2011-09-09T14:25:49-05:00

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Christian theologian, author and martyr, who was executed in a German concentration camp during the Second World War. Among his powerful writings are these two short sentences about suffering and empathy/compassion in action: "Some of us...

Karl Menninger, M.D. on PTSD (Combat Stress) in WWII Veterans

2011-09-07T13:50:39-05:00

We've briefly quoted Karl Menninger, M.D., before, here. But in scouring a book he wrote almost 50 years ago, we came across this extensive retelling of what he observed with World War II veterans and combat stress -- what we...

A Remarkable Quote from General Dwight D. Eisenhower about Who PTSD Affects

2011-09-03T14:59:57-05:00

"You mustn't think of these people as just some sort of unfortunates . . . They are not — they are one of you. I saw a major general, one of the finest athletes of his time, definitely break —...

Quotable Quotes -- Karl Menninger on Hope and Suicide

2011-07-25T13:53:02-05:00

"Hope is the major weapon against the suicide impulse." -- Karl Menninger, M.D., psychiatrist. For what it's worth, even though we've been posting a number of quotes lately, intending to provoke deeper thought and reflection, there's also an enormous archive...

Quotable Quotes -- Eckhart Tolle on the Benefits of Suffering

2011-07-20T11:24:57-05:00

"Is suffering really necessary? Yes and no. If you had not suffered as you have, there would be no depth to you, no humility, no compassion." -- Eckhart Tolle, author of "The Power of Now."

Quotable Quotes -- Elisabeth Kübler-Ross on Struggle Perfecting People

2011-07-19T12:49:06-05:00

Swiss-born physician Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, famous for her seminal work on the emotional progression associated with dying, also had something wonderful to say about the benefit of hardship for improving who we are. She wrote: "The most beautiful people we have...

The House of Four Rooms: How Are Yours Doing?

2011-06-30T10:10:09-05:00

I first learned about this concept from a fairly philosophical Marine officer who was serving in Ramadi in '05, while he was there. He shared the concept with me, and it's a great one -- one I need to return...

Freeing Yourself from the Pain in Your Soul: Writing and Trauma

2011-06-10T12:48:26-05:00

Everyone who writes, it's safe to say, has different reasons for writing. "Every writer primarily writes for the back of his own head," says British author Jonathan Raban. But when it comes to trauma, one of the key reasons people...