PTSD, Have I Mentioned This Before?

Anger has been festering in me for a long.  Betrayal does that.  Ask any divorcee about long term anger.  That wasn't my problem, divorce that is, my problem was Vietnam.  Me and about 2.4 Million in-country military that found out that, well our own country betrayed us six ways till Sunday and is still doing it.  A couple years ago I notice that I was losing my cool when I encountered fools, like the men painting my house watering down my $60 a gallon paint and a guy repairing the corner roof of my house like he was out in a white trash trailer park making a repair.  My home you see is 100 years old, and it is my home.


On the other side of the equation my friends who had served in Vietnam with me were dying from things connected to Agent Orange and I was carrying profile diseases also presumed to be caused by the toxins in the herbicide.  Within 18 months, first one vet friend died, and then one closer to me died and then one very close to me died.  I was reading about several things related to their deaths and Nam in general when it came to my attention that independent ex-Navy researchers had determined that the mean survival age for in-country Vietnam Vets exposed to the dioxins in Agent Orange was 63.  Shit I had just turned 65 and was screwing with Medicare and feeling old anyway cause my body was betraying me left/right in the ass and otherwise.  If they could be believed then only about 800,000 of that 2.4 million were still alive.  I had been using the Social Security age 73 in my longevity calculations and for long term financial planning, now I was 10 years short on the numbers.


Well, at this same time I bumped up against the incredible phenomena of the Vietnam Vet "wannabees".  Those are guys that like to pretend they are Vietnam Veterans.  I guess the taint must be off us now.  Well maybe if you know how to present yourself as a warrior saint  then it would be worthwhile.  Anyway the fact that some close associates over the years had drilled into my Nam experiences made more sense to me now.  So now I had a couple douches  who were taking my memories and playing soldier with them other venues.  Somebody called that "stolen valor".  To me it was just, well, sick.


So I was angry. Temper, I lost it with my builders and painters and others who blatantly lied to me.  Or at least I thought they had.  Then I lost it with one of my outlaws.  Lost it big time, bigger than big time.  Whoops.  OK, now I was a pariah in my extended family.  Hell, now I was disowned by my extended family.  The wife was hurt and shamed by my behavior and let me know it.  So off I went to the mental health world guided there by my Internist whom I trusted.  Yes, PTSD, hum yep PTSD, most definitely PTSD.  When I left the Army P-T-S & D were four letters that meant nothing. Probably had it, but hey, a problems not a problem until it is recognized and labeled before that it is just a personal flaw in your character.  So more pills, different pills, more pills from the psychiatrist, and therapy from a psychologist and the wife got parallel help to get on my side again, and get over being totally pissed at me. (still I was totally disowned by the extends however, not all together that bad)


Now they tell me that retirement caused part of my problem.  Say what?  I thought it was the crappy war and the shitty way I was treated when I came and and and and god damn it!   I may be drugged up but I'm not happy yet.  Can you tell?

You Can Not Save Yourself From Tomorrow, For Tomorrow Arrived Yesterday

All of these pictures are real and all of these pictures are a metaphor and all of these pictures are a prediction and forecast for all of our lives.  It isn't dooms day, unless you are where it is.

For example here is an out of control fire on the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado.  The fire is a direct result of Global Warming and Climate Change, yet nobody reporting the fire has balls enough to say that.  Indeed in most of America they don't even know the fire is burning. Lady and Gents, ain't no reason why this can't be Denver itself.

 
This one happens to be in Brazil but it is a perfect display of rising salt water into a city.  On 12 inches of salt water and the whole infrastructure is completely gone.  Now imagine a 20 foot rise in the Great Salt Lake from increased rain.  No?  Well maybe not.

This fire is at Ruidoso NM this month.  Home, Ranches, roads, trees,...
Here's the rub, It won't be coming back.  Seriously, those trees can not grow there any more.

Now this little island is from last summer.  I'll just build my own dike and save my home (this time).  Did you know that his precious black bottom land is now under several feet of sand?

 Here we go from Southern California this month.  Parking lot along the Pacific Coast Highway.  Right up the hill behind these cars are homes and homes and homes.....  California has finally come to the realization that the change is so great they can not save all of the stuff along the coast.  They are going to let the sea have it all.  Hell, as though they could beat the pacific Ocean anyway.

Another little hopeful island, I'm safe for now.

Colorado Fire again.  Them pines are dead or dying.  Perfect fuel for a catastrophe. Pine beetles size of a rice grain caused this.  Or, rather the warm winter let the pine beetle cause this.  Do you know these idiots plan to rebuild and re-plant this area?  Pipe dreams.

Water water everywhere, but not on mine.

Whoops that view is flooding in on me.

My levee is leaking some.  If the electricity doesn't go out the pumps can hold it back.

Ah shit the electricity went off.

That saltwater city again.

We can build our levees against water and even fire.  But they can't save us the next time or the next or the next because everything that is will not be no more.  It will be something else.  What/when/how is all guess work.  The systems involved are to large and too many to model a reliable predictive schedule.  But here they are and we have or shortly will begin to have to deal with them.  I was a State Geographer For Research for the State of Oklahoma for four and a half years once upon a time (under a Democrat Governor).  I talked about all this back then 20 years ago or so.  But then we were thinking maybe 2060 or 2150 for the first true effect.  Wrong!  Boy were we wrong.  No body paid me any no-never-mind back then and sure as shit they wouldn't now. (The current State Geographer has a smaller audience than even I had.)

But ladies and gentlemen, (all three or four of you) readers of my blog, no matter where you are in America don't make any long term plans base on anything climate will change, and that kidoes is everything.

A New Environment: Whitewater-Baldy Fire Gila Wilderness June 2012

These places are places from my younger years.  Back when I backpacked and camped in wilderness places.  Could it be that long ago really?  There is the Gila National Forest.  It surrounds the Gila Primitive Area.  The Primitive Area surrounds the Gila Wilderness Area.  Built along many of the stream and canyons are houses and cliff dwelling from the Mogollon Indians 100-800 A.D. and before.  Before it is finished all the Climate Change dead trees will be burned off or will be charred standing trunks.  It will be a new place here.  One of the first new place of the Climate Age.  Wonder what it will look like.

Remember, click the picture to see the larger view.

Mogollon, New Mexico

Doc's old place now Henry's

The Ghost Town /Art Colony of Mogollon is saved as is Little Fanny and the road in, everything East of that is burned over all the way to the fire tower.