In WWI they called it "shell shocked", in WWII it was called "combat fatigue. In Vietnam it was "the thousand yard stare", but it is as old as human warfare. Now that we have learned a great deal more about the human psyche we call it by a more precise name: post traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.
The growing number of non-physical injuries, classified as PTSD, resulting from the Iraqi war, combined with our rapidly expanding understanding of how fragile the human mind is to stress and violence, is uncovering a whole dimension of the cost of war. Even today, more than thirty years after the end of the Vietnam war, thousands of veterans of that war are either homeless, drug and/or addicted to drugs and alcohol or quietly suffering from the mental and emotional injuries resulting from the months and years of living in a life or death situation and viewing horrific injuries to their comrades or trying to live with the deaths they personally caused.
My neighbor is a good example. He is a Vietnam vet and was wounded during his tour of duty. He came home, joined the local police force and was shot in the line of duty. He is now retired and is an emotionally damaged alcoholic who still suffers from depression and guilt because he had to kill 13 year-old Viet Cong during a firefight. He had no choice, it was either kill or be killed, but it still haunts him, and, I suspect, the cause of his alcoholism.
A few years ago I saw an interview with a retired Special Forces officer who also served in Vietnam. He told of his first battle when he saw a Viet Cong crawling toward his team's position carrying a large explosive charge that would have killed him and his fellow soldiers. Without hesitation he raised his rifle and shot the Viet Cong through the head, killing him instantly, saving himself and his team. Thirty years later as he is describing the action for a video interview he bursts into tears as he reveals that he had never fully understood until that precise moment what a bullet would do to a person's head, literally blowing it to pieces.
This is a highly trained, dedicated professional soldier who believed in what he was fighting for, and, thirty years later, he still has such a strong emotional reaction to retelling the story that he cannot stop himself from bursting into years.
There is a story in my mother's family about a relative that was a Union soldier during the Civil war, a war that took over 600,000 lives when our population was much smaller. When he came home from that war, he purchased a small plot of land in the remote part of the county, built a cabin, and lived out his life as a hermit.
PTSD is real and lasting and is not limited to our men and women who are fighting a war. PTSD can result from any life event that threatens the life or welfare of yourself or others, or from be forced to live in highly stressful and dangerous conditions. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manuel of Mental Disorders (DSM) states that the prevalence of PTSD in at-risk individuals such as combat veterans, person who have experienced a major natural disaster or criminal violence to be between 3% and 58%.
As a society our recognition of PTSD is very selective. We easily extend a helping hand and understanding to victims of severe domestic violence, rape victims, children who are victims of sexual or emotional abuse, but soldiers who suffer the same damage fighting for our nation are expected to be super human and endure months or years of extreme stress and danger without any harm to their mental health. We need to think of our brains as being run by an operating system like our computers. When humans are exposed to extremely threatening conditions like front-line soldiers, their operating systems get re-programmed in a manner that cannot be easily reprogrammed back to their previous condition. Physical wounds heal faster and more completely than psychic ones. As individuals we react differently to the damage, so some are severely affected while others "suck it up" (hide the damage inside) and get on with their lives. Soldiers of every nation are expected to be physically and mentally tough and to be able to endure combat conditions, but the reality is quite different.
Mental health professionals know the abuse of alcohol and drugs and other dysfunctional behaviors are ways in which mental and emotionally damaged humans "self-medicate", trying to cope with feelings and thoughts that are frightening and confusing. It is time for our nation and our government to recognize PTSD as a valid war injury and treat and care for the injured accordingly. The Purple Heart has been awarded to injured soldiers since George Washington was President, and while I think it would justified to award it to soldiers who have PTSD, it is much more important to provide the long-term care and counseling these soldiers need.
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Comments: 16
Your insight into so many things is superb and thought provoking!
I love to read your articles.
When you add the reception Vietnam era soldiers got upon returning home to the PTSD, you have a soldier needing help being accousted by his civilian counterparts.
All the idiots calling them names like "baby killer", or others telling them they should have all died in the Nam. I wonder if these people ever got what they did to these heros.
Homecoming - 1971
From war in a foreign land, I disembark the plane,
gaze around for a friendly face, my search it is in vain.
A dozen longhaired hippies are screaming in my face,
baby killer, you should be dead, they cry in their disgrace.
I can never tell you how it feels; a bullet in the heart,
my country doesn't love me, that tears my world apart.
This uniform should give me pride, not make me want to run,
but these are not just little kids and we are not having fun.
Many days and long ago, the pain it is still there,
They never said I'm sorry, they simply do not care.
I protect their right to protest, a task they do not share,
They treat me like a target, who said that life was fair.
Don't tell me the incidents were "isolated". I saw too much of that BS when I got out in 1971. I listened to too much of it from co-workers. It was twenty years before ANYONE ever said thank you for serving and that was because it was fashionable to do so at the time.
What unit did you serve in? Where did you get your after war experience?
I did not serve. My number never came up, so I wasn't called.
Joe T. my husband returned from his second tour in Nam in 1971 and I can assure you that he returned to an ungrateful nation.
He was lucky to return to a small town where there were families with sons still fighting in Vietnam and people who had known him since he was a kid, so he was welcomed back by them.
His first landing in the US however, there were guys kept aside (those who were known to have become trigger happy and those who had severe PTSD). I don't care if you believe that or not, but he had no reason to lie - those guys received 30 days of treatment before they were released into the general population. Makes me think they should have been sent straight to your house - then your number may have been up.
He was still in uniform when he arrived home and at both airports and on the way home he heard baby killer and other names and yes, he was spit upon. There is no point in denying that, because there are still too many of us around who remember.
I'm guessing these days the trigger happy ones (made so by their war experiences) join Blackwater's private army.
It is so true that the same thing has happened to every soldier in every war ever faught. I am sure someone somewhere is working on a gene manipulation to override whatever causes PTSD - probably Halliburton or any of those scumball war profiteers.
Your also right it has gone on with pretty much every war throughout time but until recently these matters were not discussed it would have been unseemly. Another disadvantage to post WWII soldiers is the time it takes to get home. I think of it like a deep sea diver trying to rise up too quickly, its bad. At the end of WWII the majority of our soldiers and sailors came back via ships. It took longer and they were surrounded with guys who had pretty much been there done that and that was not a cure for it but it was better than the in less than 24 hours you go from a total war zone to landing in your home town, surrounded by loved ones - good, but can they really understand?
It is shameful the way this administration is addressing the veterans and not just of this war but they have been slashing benefits left and right, making it harder and harder for all of them. Harder to get the care you need be it mental and or physical. Harder to get adjusted. Soldiers with PTSD and being sectioned 8 out with no mention to the PTSD so that we would not have to provide benefits. There was an interview with Senator Webb on NPR today and he was talking about the GI bill he wants to see passed. In WWII for 2 years service any returning GI with an honorable discharge could get funding to go to any state supported college for four years and I think it had provisions for housing and other expenses in those four years. We don't have it that way anymore and most civillians dont realize it. He is proposing that for 3 years of service they be offered 4 years of college. He is a man I can respect too bad McCain is not supporting it.