Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for July 10, 2012

Alex, you’ll have to patient and strong.

This does not bode well.

Warning sign at the Comment Zoo: PLEASE DON’T FEED THE TROLLS, TODAY !

You can live with PTSD but it never truly goes away.

Before anyone gets into one of those long political diatribes, I sincerely recommend that they read today’s SHOE comic strip, first.Thank you.

PTSD, is something we all live with. That is if you, served in the U.S. military. It doesn’t mean were crazy, it just means that something will cause us too flash back to some place, where we’ve been.

I have every faith Alex will hang tough.

@Spaghettus1 Thank you for your comments yesterday .. I posted a late reply I hope you can read. Cheers.

@LinguistAmen – from a repentant sinner…

I think my request yesterday got lost in a welter of torn and bleeding billy-goat body-parts – does anyone have a date or a link for the strips in which the original incident, to which Toggle is now having flashbacks, occurred?

I recently saw a mentalist demonstrate how to implant and reinforce memories and thoughts in someone through a series of sudden touches coinciding with keywords. It was a very low-voilence process. When the memories and thoughts of a situation are implanted by highly violent shocks in course of battle, the results are geometrically more devastating.

I think Alex will be fine, judging by her last comment. She’s rolling with the situation.

“Fresh Air” just had an interview yesterday with a bomb squad veteran. Very moving, and gave me yet more respect for the poor people who actually fought, and are fighting, these wars.The interview is available, archived, on the Fresh Air website.

“The ones who call the shots won’t be among the dead and lame – " John McCutcheon, “Christmas in the Trenches.”

“A hero of war,Is that what they see?Just medals and scars.So damn proud of me.”

While we’ve made great strides in identification of PTSDs and other other conflict related injuries, and methods of treatment have greatly improved in the last forty years, the dirty little secret is that many, many men and women are NOT getting the treatment they need. I hope this forum might enlighten and inform reader concerning this problem. Perhaps someone has an answer on how to reach those who have fallen between the bureaucratic cracks ?

To me, Toggle is coping extremely well! Many victims of PTSD would have completely freaked if they saw the driver of the vehicle they are in as Toddle does in Panel 3. Toggle will be fine. Get over it!

Flashback on panel four!

You don’t need to be in the military to suffer from PTSD, all you need is to be exposed to some Traumatic event. Could be something as simple as a traffic accident.

How could any decent person not have PTSD after being in the horrors of war? That is not to say everyone in the service in Iraq or Afganistan should have PTSD, just the ones in the middle of the fight. This goes for firefighters and policemen also. The ones that stay in their field usually have some type of sick coping mechanism that takes them partially out of regular society.

@Alms4ThorbyI read both panels 3 and 4 as a ‘double vision’ thing – he’s seeing and hearing both what is actually happening and the original incident.

One of the other dirty little military secrets is the extremely high suicide rate within the ranks. Police officers and firefighters also have an extremely high suicide rate. While the latter professions have somewhat studied and attempted to address the problem, the military has, in many cases, swept it under the rug or stigmatized and discouraged individuals with suicidal tendencies from seeking help. The old cliche of Patton slapping the “shell-shocked” soldier and telling him in essence to " suck it up " is still way to prevalent in the service.

I had a girlfriend who suffered PTSD due the manner of her husband’s suicide. When I met her, she had tapered off the medication after three years, but soon had a relapse. It’s about an experience that will be with you for life.

Yeah, I had a remarkably good ride in the service, but lots of good women I wasn’t good for were comforting and helpful, and friends put up with all my eccentricities…several years ago I woke and stumbled in darkness to spend all night hidden low in a drainage ditch…“they”, you know. It’s mostly been fine since, although I had to move out of the Bay area and out to a barrio on the mesa without most blaring electronic warnews.I gave away my shotgun recently. Still have the pistols and blades, though.

Yes, I will ALWAYS be a VERY progressive liberal: I took “de Oppresso Liber” very seriously. It’s a MISSION,open-ended.

Come to think of it, my father must have had PTSD, and he was just a kid growing up in the Soviet Union. Spent some time in a concentration camp. He would wake up screaming, thinking that Stalin was after him…

47 years, still have PTSD, but “control”. Same spouse 43 years. Alex and Leo will be “cool”. Treatment IS better today, and they’re getting to folks like Leo much sooner, teaching how to live with chronic. Best of luck to ALL the “kids”, including Leo and Alex!

Thanks to electro77 for the url.

For those of you speaking of the things you’ve been through to have PTSD, bless you and thank you all, and I hope you have a complete healing.

“Any civilian who has been in a traumatic event (a crime scene, e. g.) can suffer from PTSD”I think this is true . . .

PtsD: In certain areas, most kids will have this.

Bravo commentors! A day of good comments with (almost) no bitterness!

I make a concerted effort not to take the bait thrown out by trolls. However, to my knowledge, I have NEVER, ever, made a comment on any strip that was “hate filled”, and I have been around GoComics a lot longer than Guard SGT. I might disagree with a persons point of view but I respect their right to say what they think, so long as they do not resort to name calling or calumny. I do object to someone who purports to be a member of the armed forces of the United States to denigrate their Commander in Chief and President with epitaphs that border on racial slurs.

Thanks to @electro77 and @LocoOwl for the links. So THAT’S why he was called Toggle…! I thought BD’s reaction in the strips that followed was very realistic and moving; ’I’m going to Germany’ ‘Actually you’re not…’