on larry king now post-traumatic stress disorder and its effect on our veterans the biggest challenge is trying to assimilate back into the civilian populace that doesn't have the same thoughts and feelings as you do of what you went through was a normal but you are normal i feel like every morning when i wake up and i turn on the television my news anchor the first thing in the last thing they need to start fair is broadcast with did you bet rates were lost last night. plus i studied the effects of transcendental meditation on a group of veterans and it was remarkable how much the group all next on larry king .

welcome to larry king now tonight a subject not discussed enough post-traumatic stress disorder with me are stephen graham and matt dallas they along with their partner charlie bully who is not with us today are working to raise two hundred fifty thousand dollars to put toward their film thunder road the movie deals with life after war and the effects of p.t.s.d. and later we'll be joined by united states marine and p.t.s.d. survivor steven cochran he'll share his story and we'll hear from dr norman rosenthal he is exploring new ways to treat this insidious disorder which is described in the oxford dictionary as a persistent mental and emotional stress occurring as a result of injury or psychological shock involving disturbances sleep constant vivid recall of the experience dulled responses to others and the outside world neither of you have gone to war why did you get involved with us. my grandfather

was a period of the second world war he was a polish farmer that was captured during the nazi takeover of poland and enslaved on his own land he knew what the nazis were up to a lot of people did know refused to join was a prisoner for five years each of roman severely i mean he was tortured me to escape several times and so i grew up he was widowed and i grew up listening to his stories that he never shared with anyone and we had these bunk beds and i would sleep on the top bunk and he would sleep on the bottom and i would fall asleep to his stories and that kind of set things in motion for me and mad. originally when i came on to this project stevens had time to me just to he wanted to make a film about soldiers return transitioning back into civilian life and the beginning i thought yeah that sounds cool but it just took me sitting down in front of our first veteran for it's become very personal according to iran study twenty percent of iraq and afghanistan veterans suffer from p.t.s.d.

half don't seek treatment why. i would say the first thing out of the gate is the social stigma the biggest thing is those they won't while think about it for for the army. it's vets will tell you it's not cool i mean you've got to toughen up and sensually like the military is able to strip you down to build you back up and that's what keeps you alive but it also is what allows you to kill and you come back home and the biggest challenge is trying to assimilate back into a civilian populace that doesn't have the same thoughts and feelings as you do but what you went through was abnormal but you are normal and that's the issue you're trying to raise two hundred fifty thousand dollars have you done so far. we're actually right now i think were just over seventy thousand we've had i mean the opportunity that this campaign has opened up to us has been huge there's so

much that we have been able to accomplish being out on the road we said we've been touring the country for the past two months just meeting with people sitting down with that and putting the power into the people's hands very inexpensive money the two hundred fifty thousand dollars is basically the proof of concept that we as a film production company myself not surely we laypeople is not a documentary right place yet exactly right but this two hundred fifty thousand dollars is the beginning of people watching right now could donate at thunder road film dot com you can log on and it will take you directly to our campaign is a lot of sewage. attendant with this disorder here's a civilian who will be very familiar to you discussing this here's our recent interview portion with gary sinise it's the first war where we heard about stress syndrome that's right and people who came out in bad shape we never heard much of

a bet more award well one sure they you know more war two it was shell shock that's what it called it shows shock shell shock and it was the same thing obviously if you're in a in a war zone and bombs are going off every single day and you're seeing death and destruction around you over a period of time is going to take its toll and it's going to have an effect on you know unfortunately we have so many serious problems today with post-traumatic stress where far too many of our service members are taking their own lives because they can't it was a days someone said we have an overwhelming number of suicides in two thousand and twelve. more in fact than actually were killed in action in afghanistan and i'm told that the number is twenty two a day that's crack that right twenty two veterans a day to suicide in the end was days and in the united states one active duty soldier every twenty five hours every twenty four hours and up and down and the other is a veterans that's correct and and that reaches across all branches and generations of the twenty eight betterments so you're really devoting

a life that is it's absolutely the past two and a half years of our lives have been a call about this film what began is just us wanting to make a film about soldiers transitioning has turned into so much more for us this movie has essentially this movie has become a a passion of ours it's become a movement a something because this is an epidemic in the country it's something that there's not being enough done about and we know that we can at least begin to take that message to the masses into the public and to start that social dialogue it was a movie years ago go above those and probably do well if you played a veteran who cracks up and starts killing people. becomes kind of a chasing him down. do you find that a lot of people with this commit violent acts i think that that's just a small percentage because we can tell you in our own experience we know. a marine name and who runs on our current going out of dallas which helps veterans find jobs

and there's a. really positive cases where people come home they do find a treatment they name they do are jobs that a lot of it is the support system that you're coming home to so though the deval movie that does happen i do know stories where there are suicide by cop or you know a veteran you know is cornered by police and we had no intention to hurt anybody but themselves and ends up getting killed because they're overwhelmed with being trapped in there had joining us now is stephen talk when united states warren and country center he's a spokeswoman for research and development at the u.s. department of veterans affairs and he is very involved in posttraumatic stress disorder stephen you call it post-traumatic stress normal what do you mean well you know larry thanks for having us on and really i want to thank you for taking on this this is a lot of people that do because it is it's something that you know it's not testable especially with the we at the unit which is disorder terminology is

a huge thing in the military i'm a self united states marine fought in iraq and afghanistan and so when you start dealing with the terminology disorder in the mind of a military man or woman you just told them that they're broke you told them that they're dischargeable gear so i think the terminology has a lot to do with where we're going right now in the effects of twenty two veterans . and you have a lot to do with it you have it right stephen hadley you know it took years years for me to be able to stand up and say this is something i deal with this is something i haven't this is something i'm supposed to have. you know we like to think of ourselves. a warrior society but we're not in fact we come from england who used to fight in line you could say but what we want to do is we want to take our boys and girls who have grown up with two cars airconditioning give them three months of training and sit them overseas to fight real war you're societies do everything that they do to us better and then come home and not have problems with

it that doesn't even make sense when i say it so it doesn't make sense in the application of it to drive the high that i did i did you know my first album i didn't write one song about the military other than when he wrote falls which is about the first marine who was killed in afghanistan it's one of my guys and i wrote that song and everything else i just held inside i kept it i stayed so busy that it happened think about it but one day you could be you know you can't stay busy every day and one day i had to think about it and when i did that's when the problems start happening you know you you can only hide it for so long and then the cracks start to show and usually your loved ones are the ones who start to notice it jeff or try to harm her so i did i did larry you know i always say that i went as far down the suicide road as you can go without being able to come back. i was in a room by myself and i thought i'm not getting better i can't sleep i'm on twelve different medications and i just need to rest the problem is that i've never believed in

suicide even in combat extreme combat i was with alit unit in the marine corps second we come to tell you i was a recon scout with second l.a. r. and even in combat i didn't believe in suicide if the enemy had taken me hopefully they would have killed me but i would have been in my own hand yet here i sat in a dark room in the united states of america and was willing to end it all just to rest what do you make of the figure of twenty two veterans a day that seems comprehensible it should seem incomprehensible you know that's the thing is that i feel like every morning when i wake up and i turn on the television my news anchor locally and nationally. the first thing in the last thing that they need to start they are is broadcast with twenty three veterans were lost last night at their hands twenty two veterans will be lost today at their own hands later this is a country where one percent of the population protects ninety nine percent you're telling me that it's not worth it out of us the rest of the ninety nine to stand up to that

one now you have to do is just make the civilian population aware of what's going on with a lot of them don't know that music help you know the fact that you had talent and could turn to that it really did when i learned to use songwriting as as a tool and i think we all have tools whether you can write songs or poems or just write it down or talk it so it's a form of and you know of expression so it's getting it out the only way to heal from this is to get it out using vets should get dogs i do if it wasn't for my dog her name it semper fi which is the marine corps motto it means always faithful and it's kind of forty and did i name to that because it was her that saved my life she basically up at the door until she broke it up to come in and lay on top of me which gave me that moment of clarity to realize this is not something i believe in this is not something i would do so if it wasn't for my dog i literally would be sitting on top of it is the veterans of ministration doing enough. you know larry i

don't think it's not just the bet and it's ministration it's all of us like i said we have to ask ourselves that question what as ninety nine percent can we do to protect this one that has written a check with their lives and i think that there's never enough that can be done and so we can stop say in the twenty's you better have committed suicide what do you think about our young friends and stephen and matt propose movie thunder road film i think that anything that can bring attention to what's going on with our veterans is great the one thing that i just really stress is that you know i'm always asked what movie reminds you of combat the most and none of them because combat is hell and i don't care how great a filmmaker you are or even if you've been there you're never going to be able to bridge that disconnect between the civilians at home watching it and the ones who back see been there so i think if we focus on the war we're losing which is the one here at home with post-traumatic stress instead of the one that's going on in iraq

and afghanistan you're going to find you're going to find that you don't hear a lot of people and help a lot of people what do you say the young men and women suffering from it. they've got to find others like them one of the greatest things that happens for me is that i get to be a part of a lot of great military organizations operation standdown operation troop a super five fund these are a lot of things that i do i work with other veterans so a lot of people think that i'm just so such a giving person and i am i love my fellow veterans but it also is therapy for me i get to go be around other veterans who are just like me and the word crazy is not allowed. stephen thank you so much best of luck with your career and your life thank you so much larry and you know we have a book called heroes of the stage that my buddy wrote which is actually about all the country artists who served in the military before they were country or did so like my website first and then go by the bush i'm going to have. by the way thank you steven cochran dr norman rosenthal will be joining us on next second his

research of p.t.s.d. treatment may surprise you that's next. well i'm. sorry it's technology innovation all the lives developments from around russia we've got the future covered. it was a. very hard to take. on a lot of that that would that make their lives. please. please.

please. please. please. please. update. wealthy british style. time. market why not. come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike's concert for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into kinds a report on our. stephen graham and alice don't forget you can help them to make this film thunder road film dot com if you'd like to chip in we're joined

now by dr norman rosenthal a clinical professor of psychiatry at georgetown medical school he conducted research of the national institute of mental health for over twenty years and continues to treat a variety of psychiatric issues at his private practice his latest book on hold you're right he has the gift of adversity the unexpected benefits of life's difficulties setbacks and imperfections it's available in bookstores everywhere doctor. what got you involved in them posttraumatic stress disorder. i've been fascinated by this problem because of the prove mendus number of people coming back from iraq and afghanistan is to made it one point six or one point seven million people suffering from this problem and no real good treatments out there are there early signs of busy or spouse of someone's going home of this problem definitely

bad silly insomnia nightmares jumpiness easily triggered by very little things apparently flashbacks memories of being back on the battlefield and also sometimes a kind of numbing and withdrawal all of these are telltale signs of p.t.s.d. you are then not shot by the suicide sadistic no i'm very saddened by it but given how much suffering these people endure it is not surprising how you study the effects of transcendental meditation on this on this disorder what is or i remember doing shows on in years ago what does t.m. it's an easy practice to do you learn how to use a sound or a montrealer. and think that sounds twenty minutes twice a day while sitting comfortably like all. it's it's sort of like that but i can't exactly tell you what my mantra is or it wouldn't be very special were it but it's not faith based you don't have to believe in anything no cosmology no

rituals not being how does it compare the psycho therapy or medication yes i studied the effects of transcendental meditation on a group of veterans with combat related p.t.s.d. and it was remarkable how much they proved in fact their symptoms were despite fifty percent after six weeks i think it needs to be taken very seriously along with these other very respected techniques so it's an alternative method. alternative or complementary it's not either or i often use these things in conjunction but it definitely adds a very significant component to the treatment plan in many people and what about our eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing that's another powerful tip meek innovates it by a san francisco psychologist princeton shapiro whereby you salue your eyes from side to side while thinking over

a traumatic event and it helps process that event and turn things into a more positive direction what are the long term effects of p.t.s.d. . the suffering is enormous and as you mentioned people can get depressed even to the point of suicide and suicide statistics really are off the chart and horrendous and so that is one of the worst outcomes but otherwise it just is tremendous disability loss of work loss of waste while a wasted life and also all of the family sitting around watching helplessly as their loved ones suffers and struggles for social stigma has to have an effect. it does because you know this perfectly able bodied person as he used to be seen or she is now regarded as a psychological cripple in some cases and that's a very steep it ties in way to have people think of you is there

a lot of divorce. yes i think a lot of people just can't put up with that you know that jumpiness one of my patients a young man had his girlfriend in a chokehold at night because he thought she was the enemy when she bumped into him so it's this kind of jumpiness flashbacks and swift drawl and numbness that takes a terrible toll on marriages but oh it can you have paid to a.s.d. without being in the military definitely first the natural disasters hurry ken said the the tsunami various of those things but also all over the world torture and physical abuse not with not to mention emotional and sexual abuse all of these can lead to p.t.s.d. as they even suggest that about his grandfather who was of your w. four five years that was seen or was normal to have it. yes it's amazing

that a lot of people don't have it because the difficulties that people in jurors are almost unthinkable why isn't transcendental meditation was the as a form of treatment on the v.a. website. you know i think it's too soon in the process that needs to be more research there's currently a large ongoing control study in san diego and at the when these results come through it will be taken seriously as it is now for example in the management of high blood pressure where it is now approved by the american heart association one of our vets and other places german veterans australian veterans and we have five other countries nobody is immune whether you're a veteran or whether you're a civilian if you suffer terrible trauma or repeated trauma we're all human we're all made of the same d.n.a. and we have the same fiber and we suffer the same troll most and so it's a universal problem our previous guest said there's no way to understand war unless

you're in it you buy that. well i think we have to use our imagination otherwise we couldn't understand anything we couldn't understand did we not get it yet we have to use our imagination movies books reports these bring these things to life and yes it's nothing that like actually being there but i think we have to do our best to be empathic and use our thoughts to imagine what it must be like thank you doctor dr norman rosenthal the book the gift of adversity you want to refute something that are yeah sure i think they mean a lot of wonderful points and it's completely you know taking a lot of the words out of our own mouth i think that what we need to be clear on what we're trying to do is we're trying to bridge the gap in terms of. starting the social conversation for for returning soldiers for veterans and what we were given was a hall pass into this world where we spent hundreds of hours in front of p.t.s.d.

clinicians neuropsychologist veteran soldiers their families and this is the first film for this generation that truly explores the psychological repercussions of combat there's no other phone for this generation soldier that does it and it's like dr rosenthal it's just as well is that like books and movies that's is the best way to ignite our imagination so that we can at least begin the steps towards understanding what war is like and the cause and effect of combat we have some social media questions for you the via twitter as where does p.t.s.d. occur more in public places or private. well i do think question i think it probably don't see it on the street much i don't think so but it's probably there a lot more than you realize and obviously there are a lot more triggers when you're in public there's a lot more sensory overload or if it's different things that could set it off but it's but i think even in private you think you know it's being home sleeping we

know we talked about a soldier that his wife accidentally bumped him wrong and socked him out of or brought him out of a dream and he thought that she was the enemy anthony a barking ass on instagram besides therapy and medication can yoga help any outlet i think every individual is different it's the same reason why the government and the v.a.'s are having such a hard time right now treating p.t.s.d. because it's a unique it's with like any sort of mental disorder with any human jaybird bently tweets do gun enthusiasts walking around with a gun strapped to their back should realize the nonverbal impact of those suffering with p.t.s.d. as was the effect when we read a story like what happened at the may be ard on those vets with this disorder. do you think. it's tough i mean what it does to them what i know i know both sides of it though i know veterans in states where the gun laws are a little more locks that like to have their weapon on their head they're trained with that weapon would want someone with dramatic stress disorder walking around

with a gun without you that's not true i've sat with i know i consider that carry guns absolutely and i know them as friends as family and they do i've been to the gun range with suffer from p.t.s.d. that have what i carry weapons. i feel like you know there are my gun comfortable i think initially i think that would just to be honest i think initially but. it's hard it's a hard thing especially with all of this conversation right now is that you know there's certain so many there's such a spectrum of p.t.s.d. or where you may fall there are some people who are dealing with a very slightly and some people who have severe p.t.s.d. there's some triggers that you know somebody that is used to doing good sweeps to somebody who's only used to firing at you know long distances so a trigger can range from anything so. it's so case by case gun tweets when should a family member take action i think that the first thing you can do and something

that we all can do starts with compassion it's listening that's the biggest thing we weren't when none of us had any sort of background psychology or anything we were just three guys who went out in the road to not years ago to try to research and authenticate the screenplay that i wrote and by listening you know we all made an agreement no matter your political background i'm out of your religion with your anti-war pro-war whatever we would just sit there and listen and i think that back that is goddess as far as why we're sitting in front of you today is that that that was the key to it and when you listen without prejudice you'd be amazed i mean we know we have countless stories were a mother will call us and say thank you today's the first day i feel. i'm getting my son back that's wonderful but take a moment tell us why people should check in with road film dot com well i think one of the most important things to realize is that there is a huge gap between the general public and the men and women that are coming home from school from combat the transition back into civilian life is incredibly

challenging and that's for us what we can begin to do is start the songbooks social conversation begin to change the perception of what the public thinks a veteran is or what p.t.s.d. is and that's what we want to do and to go beyond that and continue to put back into the veteran community and make a film that will continue to bring attention and support to that community i salute you both thank you very much thank you again thanks to my guests stephen graham matt dallas steven cochran and dr norman rosenthal for again to donate to the thunder road campaign visit thunder road film dot com and if you think you may be suffering from post-traumatic stress please visit not alone. visit not alone dot com or call the veterans crisis line at one eight hundred two seven three eight two five five i'll see that stuff.

crosstalk rules in effect on these you can jump in anytime you want. the i'm.

led. the way i was a new alert animation scripts scare me a little movement. there is breaking news tonight and they are continuing to follow the breaking news the alexander family cry tears of the warrior at your grave things rather that you had read dark in a court of law found alive is a story made for a movie is playing out in real life. the only. more news today violence is once again flared up look

these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. showing corporations around the day. look. look. look look look look look. look. look. look look a. hey guys welcome to breaking the set i want to take a moment to pay my respects to a man named current and wallace who died today from liver cancer at the age of seventy one seawalls was a former inmate louisiana state penitentiary in angola.