Conservapedia - User contributions [en]

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

2007-03-24T02:54:39Z

Kdude50:

'''Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder''' is an anxiety disorder that can occur after experiencing or witnessing a traumatic event. Some examples of a traumatic events are: military combat, natural disasters, terrorist attacks, car accidents, physical and sexual assault. It can also affect rescue workers that respond to the traumatic incident. During World War I, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder was called "Shell Shock". It was then changed to "Battle Fatigue" during World War II and then it's name was changed again to "Operational Exhaustion" during the Korean War. PTSD got it's name during Vietnam.

People exposed to a traumatic incident will most likely develop some of the symptoms of PTSD. These symptoms can be very long lasting and severe. Why PTSD develops is currently being studied. Biological, psychological and social factors affect the development of PTSD
. PTSD is not diagnosed unless the symptoms last for 1 month or longer.

There are four symptoms of PTSD:
# A person re-experiences the trauma in some way, such as flashbacks and nightmares.
# Emotional numbing such as feeling detached and a lack of emotions
# Avoiding things that remind them of the trauma
# Increased arousal, always being on guard

''Under Construction''

World War I

2007-03-24T02:49:06Z

Kdude50:

World War I, also known as '''The Great War''', was waged primarily in Europe from 1914 to 1918. It was the first global war in history. World War I also saw the first use of [[Machine Gun]]s, poisonous gas, large artillery, and armored tanks. It was a "total war" because the governments involved took control over the economy and factories, giving first priority to the goods needed for war. Wage and price controls were imposed, there was rationing of goods for civilians, and free speech was limited. The governments put out propaganda to maximize support for the war and dislike of the enemy. World War I caused an entire generation of men to die.

On one side of the war were the Central Powers, Austria-Hungary, the Second German Empire, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire. The Allies consisted of the British and French Empires, the Tsarist Russian Empire, Italy, Japan, and after 1917, the United States. Although the German Empire was only forty-three years in existence when war broke out, its aim was to achieve domination of the European continent.

=== Great Battles of World War I ===
----
World War I consisted mostly of trench warfare. This method of waging war was very slow and messy. Soldiers might wait in their trenches for weeks, only to advance a few feet and wait in a new trench. It is not hard to guess why trench warfare has not been used since World War I. There were four important battles which were fought before America joined the war.

'''Gallipoli'''

In April 1915, an amphibious Allied force landed on the Turkish peninsula of Gallipoli in a misguided attempt to knock Turkey out of the war. Although the Allies greatly outnumbered the Turks, the extremely tenacious Turkish fighters held their ground. The Allies did not understand the terrain adequately and suffered from limited knowledge of their enemy. Nine months later the Allies had to withdraw, after suffering 46,000 deaths among over 250,000 casualties.

'''Verdun'''

In 1916, the Battle of Verdun between the French and Germans may have been the most demanding battle in world history. The struggle started when the Germans attacked [[Verdun]], France, a city surrounded by a ring of underground forts. At least 220,000 soldiers died, and at least 480,000 were wounded in this 10-month struggle that accomplished nothing. At the end the front lines were in nearly the same locations as at the beginning.

'''Somme'''

Also in 1916, and also in France, the British and French armies met at the Somme River and began a massive attack on the Germans in order to distract them from [[Verdun]]. This became the Battle of the Somme, and the fighting was even heard across the British channel in England. First the Allies shelled the Germans to weaken them, and then 100,000 British soldiers charged the enemy. But the shelling did not have its intended effect, as the Germans were dug in too deeply to be affected by it. On July 1, 1916, the Germans killed 20,000 of the British soldiers and wounded over 40,000, making it the single worst day in British military history. This battle, which did not succeed in moving trench lines, eventually involved over 2 million men along a 30-mile front. The British and French lost nearly 750,000 men.

'''Third Battle of Ypres or the Battle of Passchendaele'''

For 18 months the British hid 19 huge land mines underneath the German lines southeast of Ypres, Belgium, a location that had already seen battles in 1914 and 1915. The British then detonated those massive mines, and charged the German positions in July 1917. At first the strategy worked, as the Germans were confused and disorganized. But the British did not pursue the Germans as quickly as they should have. Rain began to drench the area in one of the wettest fall seasons there in years. Soon the British forces were stuck in a mountain of mud, and this Allied plan was yet another failure.

=== The United States Joins the War ===
----
For the first three years of World War I, the United States attempted to stay out of the war. The United States had friends and citizens on both sides of the war, and the wise move was not to move, to remain neutral. When the Germans used a [[U-boat]] to sink the ''[[Lusitania]]'' in 1915, killing over one thousand people, the Americans were outraged. Later, when Britain implemented a naval blockade of Germany, the Germans announced they would sink any ship entering or leaving Britain. They held true to their word and sunk three ships from America with the U-boats. America now had many reasons to fight back, but she was still not ready to join the war.

The German Foreign Minister [[Arthur Zimmermann]] sent an encrypted telegram to the German ambassador in Mexico which sought to induce Mexico to declare war on the United States. British intelligence intercepted and deciphered the telegram, however, and gave it to the United States to help the British cause. President [[Woodrow Wilson]] made the contents of the telgram public. The telegram promised that Germany would help Mexico regain land it had lost to the United States in the [[Treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo]] which ended the [[Mexican War]] if it would declare was on the United States. At first, the Americans doubted if the telegram was real and thought it had been forged by the British to make America favor them. But then Zimmermann was foolish enough to promise the pledge to Mexico in a public speech.

The Germans had gone too far. On April 2, 1917 America declared war on Germany. The addition of the United States to the Allies tipped the power in their favor.

=== Russia ===
----
As the United States was entering the war on the side of the Allies, Russia suffered two succesive internal Revolutions which would later caused it to withdraw from the side of the Allies and leave the war altogether. The [[February Revolution]] overthrew the centuries old monarchy of the Tsar; the [[October Revolution]] ended any hopes for democracy within the former Tsarist territories for another two generations. The lack of success against the German and Austrian Empires, and the hyperinflation caused by unsustainable military spending by the Russian government led to much internal discontent and economic chaos.

Losses and hardship of the war had weakened Russian [[Czar Nicholas II]]. He abdicated the throne in March 1917 in favor of a provisional government headed by [[Alexander Kerensky]]. Hopes for a democratic revolution still existed at this time. But in October 1917, [[Vladimir Ilyich Lenin]], and the [[Communist Party]], which was never strong enough to challenge the Czar, overthrew the fledgling provisional government. The Communists later executed every member of the Czar's family including the children.

Lenin became the founder of the Soviet state. He was both a writer and a revolutionary, a rare combination. He was the brother of the "bomb thrower" [[Alexander Ulyanov]] who was hanged for his involvement in terrorist activity and an assination attempt on Czar Alexander III in 1887. An atheist, he personally converted in 1889 to [[Marxism]]. He obtained a law degree shortly afterwards, and by 1895 was a subversive who was arrested and sent to the Tsarist gulag along the Lena River in frigid Siberia where he adopted the name Lenin after the place of his internment. Once he served his time he left for Zurich, where he developed his ideas further and became a leader of the [[Bolsheviks]]. He was returned to Russia by the Germans in the wake of chaos during the Kerensky regime with the hope to led the Bolsheviks to power and negotiate a peace settlement with the Germans. After the Versailles Treaty failed to recognize the settlement between Germany and the Soviet Unions in the [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk]], he then ruled the Soviet Union and imposed a system of Marxism-Leninism (communism) that remained in force there until the 1990s.

=== The Western Front ===
----
The exit of Russia allowed Germany to shift a majority of their troops from the eastern front to the western front. This gave them a final chance to try and break the Allies before the Americans arrived. Known as [[Operation Michael]], the German offensive began in March of 1918.

The Germans launched five major campaigns in a four month period in 1918 on the [[Western Front]]. The Germans had technology and lots of energy. They had elite storm-troopers with automatic rifles, light machine guns, flame-throwers and artillery fire. They used poisonous [[mustard gas]] lavishly. They easily defeated the [[British Fifth Army]]. The Germans were advancing and taking property.

But fresh American troops entered the scene. In the [[Second Battle of the Marne]] in July 1918, the Allies started winning. Nine American divisions fought in this battle about 75 miles northeast of Paris. The Germans started this battle on another one of their offensives, but the Americans turned the tables and enabled the Allies to win it. Casualties were enormous for everyone, including the Americans. Former President [[Teddy Roosevelt]]’s son Quentin was killed in this battle.

American Capt. Jesse Woolridge, 38th Inf., 3rd Division described the battle as follows: “It’s God’s truth that one Company of American soldiers beat and routed a full regiment of picked shock troops of the German Army ... At ten o’clock ... the Germans were carrying back wounded and dead [from] the river bank and we in our exhaustion let them do it - they carried back all but six hundred which we counted later and fifty-two machine guns... We had started with 251 men and 5 lieutenants...I had left 51 men and 2 second lieutenants."

=== The War Ends ===
----
As the Americans and the Allies advanced toward Germany, the Ottoman Turks and Bulgarians surrendered. There was a revolution in Austria-Hungary that overthrew its government, and Germany would not recognize that new government. Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated his throne in Germany on November 1918, and the Germans formed a new republic. Members of the German republic signed an armistice (agreement to stop fighting) on November 11, 1918. The "war to end all wars", was over.

==Further reading==
*''War By Time-Table: How the First World War Began'', A.J.P. Taylor, New York: American Heritage, 1969.

[[Category:History]]
[[Category:Military]]

Cello

2007-03-24T02:46:25Z

Kdude50:

The '''cello''' is the lowest-pitch [[String Instruments]] of the violin family. It often shares the melody with the [[Violin]] in western [[orchestra]]. [[Ludwig van Beethoven|Beethoven]] wrote 32 [[piano]] sonatas but only 5 for cello.

The cello has recently become a mainstream musical instrument with the appearence of the band Apocalyptica in Finland and has come to international acclaim. Apocalyptica initially started off playing Metallica music on four cellos but have recently branched out into original pieces.

[[Category:Musical Instrument]]

Debate:Should the United States have entered World War I?

2007-03-23T03:12:20Z

Kdude50:

=='''Post Your Thoughts'''==

==='''yes...'''===

Yes

Yes. Three major factors could contribute to this. One being that our allies were about to fall to the seemingly unstoppable German war machine. Two, the Germans and their allies were sinking ships carrying American citizens. We had every right in the world to go forward and protect not only our allies, but our own citizens. Three, we were experiencing a slump in our economy and needed something to drive the prices back up.
--[[User:Goose89|Goose]] 13:24, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

Yes. Another reason not listed above is that in early 1917, Germany's foreign secretary, Arthur Zimmermann, sent a coded telegram to Germany's ambassador to Mexico promised that if Mexico declared war on the United States, Germany would help give back Mexico the territories it lost (Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico, also known as the Mexico Cession) in the Treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo which ended the Mexican-American War.
--[[User:Kdude50|Kdude50]] 16:54, 17 March 2007

==='''no...'''===

Because the Americans brought the so called 'Spanish flu' with them and that fearful disease managed to kill off nearly 20 million mostly young European citizens far more than were actually killed by the war. Of course it wasn't in any way meant. If the American soldiers had not been crowded together in their vast training camps perhaps the virus would not have developed and the many Americans who died from this pandemic would also have been saved.

If the Europeans would have settled their issues on there own, there would have been a tie in the end, or maybe Austria/Germany would have won. In that case Hitler would not have arisen and WWII would never have occured, many Eastern European countries wouldn't have suffered communism.--[[User:Jack Ketch|Jack Ketch]] 06:46, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

:Hitler wouldn't have risen to power in Germany had it not been forced to pay war reparations as declared in the Treaty of Versailles. Woodrow Wilson didn't want to punish Germany as harshly as our allies did but no one really listened to Wilson. This is an example of Europeans settling their issues on their own which in turn caused WWII. Also, another example Europeans settling their issues on their own is when The Black Hand assassinating Archduke Franz Ferdinand which started WWI. So clearly your argument about letting Europeans settling their issues on their own is faulty.--[[User:Kdude50|Kdude50]] 22:12, 22 March 2007

Debate:Should the United States have entered World War I?

2007-03-17T22:00:43Z

Kdude50:

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

2007-03-17T21:58:42Z

Kdude50:

Debate:Should the United States have entered World War I?

2007-03-17T21:54:36Z

Kdude50: /* '''yes...''' */

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

2007-03-17T20:43:41Z

Kdude50:

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is an anxiety disorder that can occur after experiencing or witnessing a traumatic event. Some examples of a traumatic events are: military combat, natural disasters, terrorist attacks, car accidents, physical and sexual assault. It can also affect rescue workers that respond to the traumatic incident. During World War I, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder was called "Shell Shock". It was then changed to "Battle Fatigue" during World War II and then it's name was changed again to "Operational Exhaustion" during the Korean War. PTSD got it's name during Vietnam.

People exposed to a traumatic incident will most likely develop some of the symptoms of PTSD. These symptoms can be very long lasting and severe. Why PTSD develops is currently being studied. Biological, psychological and social factors affect the development of PTSD
. PTSD is not diagnosed unless the symptoms last for 1 month or longer.

There are four symptoms of PTSD:
#1 A person re-experiences the trauma in some way, such as flashbacks and nightmares.
#2 Emotional numbing such as feeling detached and a lack of emotions
#3 Avoiding things that remind them of the trauma
#4 Increased arousal, always being on guard

D-Day

2007-03-15T01:24:53Z

Kdude50:

D‑Day was June 6, 1944, when Allied forces began their invasion of continental Europe in order to free it from Nazi (German) control. On this day the Allied forces accomplished the largest amphibious invasion in the history of Mankind on the beaches of Normandy, France.

The landings were originally scheduled for June 5th, but bad weather and heavy cloud cover forced General Eisenhower to postpone the attack. The next day, the weather had not improved much, but the Allied commanders decided that a delay would be too costly. So, starting before dawn, elite paratroopers landed in gliders behind enemy lines to take out critical gun emplacements. American soldiers landed at Omaha and Utah beahces, while the British and Canadian forces landed at Sword, Juno, and Gold beaches. The British and Canadians had a small struggle with German defenses because of heavy bombardment by the Allied Navy. But things were different for the American forces that landed at Omaha. The shelling from the big guns was less accurate, and more fixed guns were left intact. The landing craft were shelled by 88mm guns, raked by machine gun fire and had to go through mine fields.

Prior to the landings in Normandy, a huge deception campaign was started by the Allies. Radio transmissions were deliberately allowed to be intercepted saying that the landings would be at Calais, not Normandy. Also, on the days before the attack, squadrons of bombers dropped flakes of tin foil on the route to Calais to try to fool the German radar into thinking an Allied fleet was advancing toward Calais. The deception worked, becasue on the day of the actual invasion, much of the German's main army was held back in anticipation of the "real" invasion coming in Calais.

By sheer Allied luck, the German commanders were not at the front on the day of the invasion. Rommel was back in Germany visiting his wife for her birthday because he thought the Allies would be crazy to try an invasion in such terrible weather. German army doctrine also said to hold the Panzers in reserve several miles away from the beaches and allow the Allies to land, then pound them with the Panzers once the troops had landed. Even after the Allies had landed, Hitler, commanding from Berlin, held the main Panzer force in reserve because he thought that the landings in Normandy were a diversion and the real invasion would come in Calais and be commanded by George S. Patton.

The Normandy invasion signalled the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany, and the [[Allies]] would be slowed very little once the main force had landed. The day would be remembered in years to come as the "Longest Day".

[[Image:Bunkers.jpg]]
[[Image:D-day 2.jpg]]