It used to be called “war fever.” Now, it is known as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). There was a time when there was no cure, only short-term relief. Today, that could be changing as war-stressed veterans have endured decades with no answers, just symptoms. There is no chemical relief for this ailment, but that hasn’t stopped thousands of people from trying all known ways to fix the problem. Addictions abound in this field.

Science and psychology are merging in a new way to unlock the places that hold so much trauma for these former soldiers. We still have living soldiers from WWII. Few escaped the wrath of war fever at some point in their travels. All the survivors of all the wars that have been fought face the same misrepresentation. We take out a section of time, change all the rules about what it means to be a decent human being, and then we change the rules and don’t expect a backlash. War Fever is that backlash. One day killing is wrong. The following is celebrated. The more, the better the motto of war. Genocide. Eliminate the enemy. Collateral damage is expected.

Leading minds in the fields of science, physics and chemistry were used to create mass killings of our ‘enemies’. Einstein discovered a technology that could very well end humanity’s walk on this planet. But no one has invented a mentality that humans can accept and justify taking the life of another, much less many other lives. We are not programmed to destroy ourselves. Some (our soldiers) had to learn that and their minds are burning up of the idea of ​​it.

A soldier who flew Cottontails in World War II brought war fever to Medina, Ohio, when he returned. It was my grandfather Ralph Warren Hisey. Shot down over Ploesti, Romania, he came across a dead British soldier while hiding in brush. He changed his clothes and wore the uniform of that RAF (Royal Air Force) steering wheel to fool the Germans into thinking he was English. It worked until he was taken to the prison camp and his ‘boys’ yelled “Hisey, over here!”

Fast forward a couple of decades, and I wake up at dawn and look outside to see my grandfather standing in the field. I thought I was waving to something so I got out and stood on the fence. I realized that I was throwing something.

He saw me, called me and told me that he was staying sane in the prison camp by practicing his tone all night, in the barracks, in the dark. “Hitler didn’t own this!” He said while pointing to his head. “The Nazis never took over my mind,” said the soldier. Over and over again, he practiced his throwing and did all his training exercises on those concrete floors until he got too weak.

When he returned to the United States, he was a shadow of who he was before and barely strong enough to work. His dream of playing professional baseball became a long lost thought.

War fever gripped him for the rest of his life. Nightmares of torture at the hands of the Nazis came to him by chance. A feeling of helplessness that he said he couldn’t describe would wash over him. Sometimes just the smell of cabbage did it. He mentally fought the Germans for the rest of his life. They never released it.

Now a new “technology” is being introduced through a combination of medications and a kind of guided meditation / conversation therapy. Returning to the scene to re-experience the damage has been done for years with mixed results. Returning in a controlled but altered state can regain better responses and resolution from the experience. This can only be done with a guide.

Our current struggle in faraway places is producing a new brand of post-traumatic stress disorder that has resulted in more loss of life. Back on American soil, safe and in their homes, soldiers continue to kill in the name of war. They are killing their immediate families as they wake up in fights for their lives.

Perhaps the new techniques will bring relief and reassurance to the generations of war veterans who live among us and will continue to do so for years to come.