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Hugh Hunter's avatar

If you were raising animals and the males changed the way Western men have, growing weaker, more emotional, less fertile, directionless, and with shortened lifespans, you’d conclude that whether by accident or through malice, your animals were being poisoned. You’d put all your effort into figuring out why. In a sane society, the question of what has happened to men would of interest to everyone. It’d be in the news nightly.

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John Carter's avatar

A few years ago my brother came back from a tour in Afghanistan, and it quickly became apparent that he'd brought the war home with him. Nightmares, an explosive temper. The military put him in therapy, which he's been in for years now. No pot, but CBD oil was recommended - I don't buy that that isn't a drug. In any case it seemed to calm him down. Yet, the therapy never seemed to end.

I've often thought precisely as you do, therapy is fake and gay. Every male therapist I've met is a soft spoken, uptalking spiritual catamite. What, I wondered, could such a person offer a blooded combat veteran? Surely it would be better to find a priest of severe countenance and dry humor, a man who understands but does not excuse the darkness of the human heart? Or to take refuge in the arms of a willing and sympathetic lady of the night ... the traditional companion of the soldier since time immemorial?

In ages past there was no such thing as PTSD. Perhaps modern warfare is uniquely capable of shattering a man's nerves. Yet the horrors and terrors of war are hardly new. In ages past, a soldier would return with his comrades - the bonds forged in battle were bonds for life. Now, they disperse to their various points of geographical origin, stripped of the ersatz tribe of their platoon and left to confront the demons they've returned with surrounded only by those who cannot comprehend them.

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