STRESS AND COPING WITH TRAUMA OF WAR IN THE PERSIAN GULF

File: 110596_sep96_decls2_0018.txt
Page: 0018
Total Pages: 48

Subject: STRESS AND COPING WITH TRAUMA OF WAR IN THE PERSIAN GULF        

Unit: VAR. BUMED  

Parent Organization: BUMED       

Box ID: BX303818

Folder Title: USNS COMFORT TAH 20 MEDICAL ARTICLES 1991 1992                                                  

Document Number:          4

Folder SEQ  #:         13











                   Describing his experience in.,V.iet Nam, Dr. Colbach

              wrote, "flow can I justify pleasure from horror? ... This

              feeling was so improper that I fought against it [but] I was

              in the middle of a situation that highlighted the difference

              between life and death." In times of war expectations

              change and what seems bizarre can become the expectable. On

              Christmas Eve a group of people from the USNS Comfort

              dressed in their service dress blues and walked down the

              pier in Dubai to attend a midnight mass in the hanger deck

              of an amphibious warship. Chemical wands normally used by

              Marines during night operations were used in place of

              candles. The sights, sounds, and smells of war machinery

              surrounded the alter which was positioned directly below

              bomb shaped external fuel tanks. The congregation was

              squeezed in between Ilarrier Jets and Cobra attack

              helicopters. The contrast of peace and war was concrete,

              painful, and profound. There was a pervasive inescapable

              feeling that the coming war would extinguish the din glow of

              the peace candles.

                   This setting was neither shocking nor alarming to the

              assembled congregation. --Living with war machinery had

              become normal, it would have seemed abnormal to celebrate

              Christmas with family. A cultural shift had occurred, but

              this was not an easy transition.






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Document 48 f:/Week-39/BX303818/USNS COMFORT TAH 20 MEDICAL ARTICLES 1991 1992/stress and coping with trauma of war in the pers:1104960910243
Control Fields 17
File Room = sep96_declassified
File Cabinet = Week-39
Box ID = BX303818
Unit = VAR. BUMED
Parent Organization = BUMED
Folder Title = USNS COMFORT TAH 20 MEDICAL ARTICLES 1991 1992
Folder Seq # = 13
Subject = STRESS AND COPING WITH TRAUMA OF WAR IN THE PERS
Document Seq # = 4
Document Date =
Scan Date =
Queued for Declassification = 01-JAN-1980
Short Term Referral = 01-JAN-1980
Long Term Referral = 01-JAN-1980
Permanent Referral = 01-JAN-1980
Non-Health Related Document = 01-JAN-1980
Declassified = 04-NOV-1996