Word: stress
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...once Harding returned to base, he had trouble sleeping. His mind replayed the gruesome scene over and over. He suffered changes of mood and was beset by anxiety about why the incident had happened. He went out on patrol the next day carrying with him classic symptoms of combat stress: the emotional, physical and psychological fallout from living through--or under the extended threat of--traumatic events. Said company commander Captain Patrick Rapicault, "You have to get over your feelings and keep on pushing, just for the simple reason that you have another 170 Marines to take care...
These days, stress is a given in Iraq for locals and foreigners working in just about any capacity. Combat troops no doubt feel it most acutely. Day after day in the hit-and-run, chase-and-hide rhythm that has defined most of the fighting over the past 20 months, front-line forces are confronting the bulk of the horrors. So far, more than 1,200 have died and at least 8,400 have sustained physical injuries. That does not count the 1 in 5 who, according to a recent study, are suffering what the military calls "stress injury...
...easy to see why so many troops are succumbing to stress. Every trip "outside the wire" brings the possibility of attack from any direction, from people who look like everyday citizens and from everyday objects--cars, oilcans, dead animals, even human beings--refashioned into deadly bombs. "It's relentless," says a Marine who was deployed in al-Anbar province, which includes violent hotbeds like Ramadi and Fallujah. "From the moment you arrive until the moment you leave, you're in danger." The life-threatening character of the daily job steadily erodes an individual's psychological immune system...
What do you do when your heart starts to bloat and sag? You could try to prop it up. That's the idea behind the CorCap Cardiac Support Device, a mesh wrap fashioned to fit like a support stocking around the heart to relieve the stress created when the organ becomes enlarged, usually from trying to compensate for damage caused by heart attacks, valve disorders or high blood pressure. In a study of 300 patients, the CorCap reportedly helped enlarged hearts return to a more normal size and shape. The cardiac support hose is still experimental, and implanting it involves...
Gonzales later requested a legal opinion from a Justice Department agency that ultimately argued that subjecting suspected al-Qaeda terrorists in captivity to extreme stress "may be justified." When abuses at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison came to light last spring, some Administration critics cited that memo as the legal backbone for the harsher treatment of prisoners, which is now the subject of court-martial proceedings...