Wives strip off in support of war-scarred husbands

JULIA writes -

I think it's good to highlight the true effects of war on the soldiers and their families. The propaganda makes the men heroes. They must be so confused when they are treated as heroes after what they have been through. Everything they go through must be against their inner soul, yet all the rules and the conditioning are in place to make the armed forces very difficult to escape from. Almost a crime.

This sort of thing needs to come out into the public domain so that the population in general stop worshipping war , and see it for what it really is, just a mass slaughter of human beings. Calculated and condoned, as Harry Patch said, the last surviving Tommy.

Someone I know is starting up a charity to help families affected. he mentioned that it's not only the soldiers, it's the wives, and the marriages and the kids that are affected too. The charity, called something like Save Our Soldiers, deals with the effects using psychiatric methods to heal the soldier's trauma so that they can get on with their lives and be part f their family again. This highlights how much damage is caused, even to those that survive. The government of course are not the slightest bit interested in sorting out any mess they have caused, as that was their intention in the first place.

ARTICLE...

Many members of the military who returned from Iraq and Afghanistan without physical injuries were nonetheless mentally scarred by their experiences.

Around one in five veterans of the last decade's wars is believed to suffer from some form of PTSD.

Battling Bare was created by Ashley Wise, whose husband Rob developed the condition after his second tour of duty in Iraq.

She was driven to despair when he ran away from home and locked himself in a hotel room with a number of weapons.

Uniform: The Women often put on clothing belonging to soldiers and other members of the military

Pair: This mother and daughter teamed up to pay tribute to the military man in their family

Artistic: The beautiful collection forms a stunning set of images which testify to the wives' stoicism

When she sought help from the authorities, she saw her husband arrested by military police and threatened with a dishonourable discharge.

It was then that Mrs Wise, seeking an outlet for her suffering and a way to support her husband, wrote a message on her back and uploaded a picture of herself in his uniform to Facebook.

The poetic message read: 'Broken by battle, wounded by war, my love is forever, to you this I swore. I will quiet your silent screams, help heal your shattered soul, until once again my love you are whole.'

Good cause: The project is an attempt to raise awareness about PTSD in the U.S. military

Poignant: Battling Bare is helping military wives support their husbands as they suffer from PTSD

Inspiration: Mrs Wise has sparked a movement of patriotic military wives

Her words struck a chord with other military wives, and before long she was daubing the same message on other women, photographing them and adding the pictures to the fast-growing online album.

'This is a pledge that you're making for your spouse that, in my opinion, is just as important as marriage vows,' Mrs Wise told CNN.

The pledge is not just personal - Battling Bare is also intended to raise awareness of PTSD among the civilian population as a whole.