Hello all! I hope everyone is safe and well. Today I would like to open up a topic about Critical Incident Stress Debriefing (CISD). As we watch the news for changing conditions in Iraq and Afghanistan and to possibly catch a glimpse of our dear friends and family members who are serving overseas, we do not see how some of the soldiers are returning home. Can you imagine how tired the soldiers are with the war now into it's 7th year? You can see in their eyes the fatigue, you can hear it when they talk and you can feel some of the tension of being in the flight or fight stage for too long. The Army does not provide enough CISD for the soldiers. It is not in the Army doctrine for any soldier to possess to any degree, mental fatigue that will ultimately lead to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). We, as members of public safety, have taken for granted our CISD program. Before everyone goes stir crazy, I merely wish to state that our profession takes into consideration the stress of various incidents and initiates appropriate actions. This helps to make the firefighter/EMS career field manageable to our mental and physical well being. Simply put, the CISD program ensures to some degree, that once we are clear of the stressor, we will be able to return to duty and our personal life.
The SWAT/tactical medic community and the fire/EMS will see an increase in soldiers coming home and not being able to cope with normal life. I have a couple of stories on a few friends who are on active duty now and have night sweats, depression, suicidal ideations, delusions and so forth. One of them went into a store waving his Glock because he felt that he was being ripped off by the clerk on a purchase he made for a car stereo. When I asked him "why in the HECK did he do that?", his only response was that he "felt something snap". Another soldier got into a fight at the bar because of a drunk singer from the band told him that he did not want his kind around there. With out warning or hesitation (and blindingly fast), he punched the singer in the face and knocked him out, parts of the singer's eye glasses embedded into his orbital socket. When I asked him the same question of why he did it, his response was the same. I am sure that you know of someone who have the same symptoms as above.
My point is simple. I know we all have friends and family who are serving in the combat theatre. Firefighter nation is 18,000 members strong. Please, will you help me to introduce some methodology of our CISD program to the soldiers? Our CISD program works, we know it does. We continue our careers to retirement and settle into NORMAL civilian life only because our bodies tell us it is time to stop. We, the 18,000, have saved countless lives and have had profound impact on other people's lives. It is better to talk to the soldiers now than to talk to them through a barricade just before SWAT enters. I do not want to use my tactical medic skill sets on a friend, family member or another soldier because of PTSD. It begins here. ...because, if not us, then who?