ABSTRACT
It is not my purpose to depress you, the reader, or overwhelm you with numbers. But like Havel, playwright, former political prisoner and now President of the Czech Republic, I too feel an urgency about time passing and time running out. Although we talk a great deal about violence and preoccupy ourselves with tales of terror and horror, the causes of the violence go on, seemingly unaffected by our concern. If I could have you spend just a few days on my unit, I know that like me, you would brush so closely up against the open wounds of our society, that the suffering of our children and their parents would be undeniable, that you would see the interconnected nature of our social problems and feel compelled to do something to make a change for the better. But I cannot take you into my experience with anything except words and ideas, and only with these numbers can I attempt to convince you that we are all part of a society that is organized around unresolved traumatic experience.
