US Attacks Iran 2026

[JohnL]

If you do happen to try to help vets that might have PTSD their spouses are also needing support too. Some of the Free Willers have churches close to military bases so they regularly have ministry with that group. Years ago I went to a retreat on ministry to those who have PTSD because of that. There was a lot of info on the condition but also on the needs of their spouses too.
God bless you if you decide to take on this responsibility. In my book veterans were a part of Jesus' ministry to everyone regardless of background. It takes a very laid back and patient personality to be able to reach some of them with PTSD and get them to trust the mentor/ambassador enough to feel safe.

As a boy, one of my dad's friends was a Vietnam vet. He was talented and extremely capable in rural farming skills like welding, diesel mechanic, electrician, etc... and once had his own dairy farm but the stress would trigger his untreated, undiagnosed PTSD which turned him to alcohol. He eventually lost the farm and his family and took a job with another farmer overseeing the beef cows because it was quiet, stress free with limited human engagement.

I remember him telling my dad about waking in the night to the sound of wild dogs attacking his dairy calves. He blacked out and didn't recover consciousness until it was morning and he found himself under the house aiming his rifle out of the foundation vents. Along side the house was a row of dead dogs laid out like soldiers waiting for body bags. That was when he realized he needed to sell the farm before he killed someone.

Has he sought any help from the VA or other agency? I hope and pray he can recover.

[barnhart]

That was the early 80's. I'm not sure they knew about PTSD back then.

[MattY]

Two contrary views on the war.

What's Gone Right in the Iran War?
https://www.nationalreview.com/2026/03/ ... -iran-war/
Read the whole thing (if you've got some free article views available on that site). The conclusion:

Contrary to some embarrassing rhetorical contortions in Washington, this is a real war, and real wars rarely go according to plan. This conflict is no exception. But the pessimistic assessments of the war encouraged by over-caffeinated observers on social media are unwarranted. Some perspective is in order, and that perspective would lead any honest spectator to conclude that the facts on the ground do not warrant the catastrophism that prevails among the groundlings on social media and within the press corps.

On the other hand:

The U.S. Built a Blueprint to Avoid Civilian War Casualties. Trump Officials Scrapped It.
https://www.propublica.org/article/trum ... casualties

Bryant, a former special operations targeting specialist, said he couldn’t help but think of what-ifs as he monitored fallout from the Feb. 28 attack.

Just over a year ago, he had been a senior adviser in an ambitious new Defense Department program aimed at reducing civilian harm during operations. Finally, Bryant said, the military was getting serious about reforms. He worked out of a newly opened Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, where his supervisor was a veteran strike-team targeter who had served as a United Nations war crimes investigator.

Today, that momentum is gone. Bryant was forced out of government in cuts last spring. The civilian protection mission was dissolved as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made “lethality” a top priority. And the world has witnessed a tragedy in Minab that, if U.S. responsibility is confirmed, would be the most civilians killed by the military in a single attack in decades.

Dismantling the fledgling harm-reduction effort, defense analysts say, is among several ways the Trump administration has reorganized national security around two principles: more aggression, less accountability...
...
“It’s a recipe for disaster,” a senior counterterrorism official who left the government a few months ago said of the Trump administration’s yearlong bombing spree. “It’s ‘Groundhog Day’ — every day we’re just killing people and making more enemies.”

And lastly, a post on X:

[JohnL]

That was the early 80's. I'm not sure they knew about PTSD back then.

I did a little digging and PTSD has gone by a number of names for the condition. PTSD has been used to describe it starting in 1980.

The term posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has become a household name since its first appearance in 1980 in the third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-lll) published by the American Psychiatric Association, In the collective mind, this diagnosis is associated with the legacy of the Vietnam War disaster. Earlier conflicts had given birth to terms, such as “soldier's heart, ” “shell shock,” and “war neurosis.” The latter diagnosis was equivalent to the névrose de guerre and Kriegsneurose of French and German scientific literature. This article describes how the immediate and chronic consequences of psychological trauma made their way into medical literature, and how concepts of diagnosis and treatment evolved over time. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3181586/

The paper goes on to cite examples of PTSD being described in the earliest literature of humanity including the Bible. They just didn't call it PTSD.
I think PTSD started to be used in 1980 because they realized folks didn't have to be at war to be traumatized. There's other situations and experiences that can cause it so they gave it a more generalized name.

[Jazman]

Looks like high gas prices and probably a recession on the horizon... will this make america great again?

[mike]

Looks like high gas prices and probably a recession on the horizon... will this make america great again?

We are not yet anywhere near the $5+ per gallon peak that happened under Biden in 2022 (no war needed). It could happen yet, oil is still rising. I would not have been surprised to see a recession at any point in the past five years after the Covid spending bubble, but it never happened. Maybe this conflict is what will finally trigger a recession, but I think that artificial pressures on the market such as a pandemic or war can be quickly overcome, where systemic problems cannot so easily be.

One thing to note about the current oil price increases is that there is no actual shortage of oil in the US because we now get most of our oil domestically or from Canada; the price reflects global demand. What this means is that the current price spike now benefits US oil producers instead of just Saudi princes like it would have 20-40 years ago.

[mike]

Crude Oil Production by Country (thousand barrels per day - kb/d)

United States - 13,655
Saudi Arabia - 10,100
Russia - 10,056

Canada - 5,234
China - 4,310
Iraq - 4,097
Brazil - 3,773
UAE - 3,383
Iran - 3,129
Kuwait - 2,580
Kazakhstan - 2,029
Norway - 1,899
Mexico - 1,730
Nigeria - 1,459
Libya - 1,378
Qatar - 1,322
Oman - 1,023
Algeria - 971
Venezuela - 924
Argentina - 848
Colombia - 745
India - 607
Indonesia - 588
United Kingdom - 588
Azerbaijan - 550
Malaysia - 530
Egypt - 519
Ecuador - 469

Source: TradingEconomics

[Ernie]

What this means is that the current price spike now benefits US oil producers instead of just Saudi princes like it would have 20-40 years ago.

It also benefits investors.

[ohio jones]

Crude Oil Production by Country (thousand barrels per day - kb/d)

Venezuela - 924

And this justified an invasion and regime change?

[Valerie]

Crude Oil Production by Country (thousand barrels per day - kb/d)

Venezuela - 924

And this justified an invasion and regime change?

No. This was LONG overdue- and could have been avoided.
But, we do not want to be dependent on the Middle East do we?