January 6, 2010: The U.S. Army is hustling to come up with ways to deal with troops suffering from too much battlefield stress. The latest effort consists of classes on how to be happy. OK, it's called "resiliency training", and it's working. Based on similar training given to stressed out civilian workers, it's been around for years. The army plans to give the ten day course to over a million active duty and reserve troops. The first to receive the training are NCOs, who will then become instructors. Over a quarter of these students have PTSD (combat fatigue) to some degree, and most agree that the training has helped. It should, as the course was selected from work that was developed and peer reviewed at the university level, and successfully given to thousands of civilians.
The army will measure the impact of the training on those who receive it, to see how successful the training is, and how it can be improved.
