This year, all our troops that have been deployed in Iraq will return home. Record numbers of the ones who have already returned -- about one-third -- have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. An unprecedented number of them have committed suicide, and it's quickly becoming clear that our society cannot afford to ignore their invisible wounds -- especially the way we ignored those of our older veterans, namely World War II soldiers.
What words would you use to describe the World War II combat veterans you have known? Humble? Hard-working? Dedicated to their families? Silent about their war experiences?
I'll bet that almost all of us -- especially we children of those veterans -- would agree to the last choice. Our fathers never talked about what they did in the war.
My father's silence spilled beyond the topic of his war years to engulf my childhood home. As we sat down for dinner, he would place Barbara Streisand and Yale Whiffenpoof albums on the stereo, their doleful songs substituting for conversation. On Sundays, he took my family for drives to a Holiday Inn where we ate dinner before driving back home. The whirring of the tires lulled me to sleep in both directions.
At his office, he was a different person. There he smiled, nodded as he listened to his patients, wrapped his arm around their shoulders. There, his eyes twinkled -- even at me. That is where I went to tell him I wanted to drop out of law school, that I needed therapy, that I couldn't bear my depression any longer -- because at his office, there was a chance that he would answer.
After my father's death, however, I discovered what his silence concealed.
I found his army trunk in his office basement. It contained a box of photographs that he had taken during World War II, beginning with crossing the English Channel en route to Utah Beach for D-Day, across France, then Belgium where he tended the wounded at the Battle of the Bulge, into Germany. Photos labeled "Nordhausen Concentration Camp, April 11, 1945" showed countless skeletal bodies. An aunt explained that he had treated survivors for two weeks before suffering a mental breakdown.
This information astounded me, and I set out to meet other World War II veterans who had liberated the concentration camps. I found that veteran after veteran has never talked about it with their children, and that they have told very little to their spouses. Veteran after veteran choked up as they began describing what they witnessed in the camps. Many could not continue to talk. Many told me that they would have nightmares that night.
"I was never the same; I was never the same," a liberator of Dachau said.
"Did I ever change back?" a liberator of Ohrduf asked himself.
"I never spoke of it because there were no words," said a doctor who treated Dachau's survivors.
"I could not talk about it. Literally, could not talk," explained a liberator of Buchenwald.
"When I saw the crematorium, the shock was complete and total."
The over 70 men and one woman I met are still traumatized, 65 years later. The grip of the trauma is unyielding, even for those who have turned to art and writing for healing.
Could these people have post-traumatic stress disorder? I asked myself. They showed no rage, no signs of alcoholism, no nervousness or numbness. There were no indications of domestic problems -- all the indicators of what the media has presented as the hallmarks of PTSD.
Since the invasion of Iraq, we have finally begun to pay attention to combat PTSD. But the media's reporting of it has skewed our understanding of how PTSD can manifest itself. Yes, it often shows up in outbursts of rage, in substance abuse and violence. But as I learned in my travels across the country interviewing World War II veterans, the much more common face of combat PTSD is one of depression, melancholy, silence, distance, avoidance of the memories.
Our veterans desperately want to shield their families from the horrors of war, and so they turn to silence, knowing no other way to keep the awful memories from polluting their homes. They don't tell us about their awful nightmares (though many children remember being awakened by their fathers' moans or cries during the night), and they don't speak of any negative emotion, as to open oneself to sadness or grief would open the flood gates.
And the effect of the trauma -- a distortion of perception -- keeps them from perceiving how this silence shapes their children.
Children are sponges, absorbing whatever emotion and behavior they observe. They take on their parents' attributes, and so I inherited my father's depression, his emotional distancing. I inherited his war.
Children of Vietnam veterans recognize the connection between their emotional lives and their fathers's war, but children of World War II veterans still resist making similar connections. Perhaps this is because we, the generation that made Prozac and therapy household terms, still need to idealize World War II as "the good war" and our fathers as the "Greatest Generation." But I believe that that label has burdened them, made it more difficult for them to admit their pain and find help. Delayed onset of PTSD among World War II veterans has not received much attention from the media, despite the significant increase of diagnosis of PTSD among World War II veterans in just the last 10 years.
Our misperceptions of what PTSD looks like not only keeps World War II veterans from getting the help they need, but it will affect the level of support available to our soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. It is time to realize that there is no good war, and there is no victor. Everyone returns from war wounded, bringing their war home into the hearts of their families. That is the cruelest aspect of going to war, that the veteran isn't able to protect that which he or she holds most dear: his or her family.
Our responsibility is to mitigate that harm as much as we are able. We must support our veterans, not with a bumper sticker but with heartfelt commitment and engagement. We must do all we can to help them heal and know peace.
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The principal reason for the delayed diagnoses of PTSD in WWII veterans is that, for decades, the VA did not provide psychiatric care for them unless they were virtually catatonic, all the while providing such care for Korean War and Vietnam War veterans. Indeed, psychiatric care for PTSD among WWII veterans was not offered until sometime in the 1980s. That was when my father, with whom I had watched "Hogan's Heroes" and a variety of war movies as a child, was diagnosed with PTSD and began to open up and tell me about his experiences as a POW in the worst German prison camp (at least for Western soldiers), where 40,000 prisoners starved to death (Polish archeologists have been digging them up for years) and where he obtained a piece of scrimshaw that turned out not to be ivory but a piece of human skull. He can no longer watch violence on television or in movies, but he is happier, although he constantly blames himself for any effect his PTSD may have had on me and my brother.
thanks for you interesting article, the problem is bigger I thought.
In Germany we have only about 1000 PTSD - soldiers,
but in the US more than 500 000,
and from the World War II involved countries millions got PTSD,
an they gave it to their children and to their childrens children ...
And how many since 1945 from the regional wars like Korea, Vietnam, Irak, Afghanistan, etc ...
We should do everything to find out, what can help to heal PTSD.
But there seems some great hope.
A pilot study already has shown: Transcendental Meditation (TM)
is very helpfull for people with PTSD and has no side effects:
Jerry Yellin, a decorated World War II fighter pilot who himself suffered from the acute problems caused by PTSD—and who later enjoyed the stress-relieving benefits of the TM, quoted :
“We have the ability to teach traumatized young veterans to meditate and help them enormously,”
The researchers were 'very surprised' by how quickly these effects were seen—even within four weeks of veterans' beginning TM—and then continued as the study progressed, with measurements at 8 and 12 weeks.
Inspired by this, The David Lynch Foundation got in an one night fundraising campaign
more money, what is needed to teach 10 000 PTSD - soldiers and their relatives TM.
Also a team of scientists, medical doctors and psychologists
will lead the study and look after the soldiers.
www.tm.org/blog/news/tm-veterans-suffering-ptsd/
He came home when I was five years old. It was difficult for him to acclimate to family life, but ever the macho Marine, he did his duty and did not complain.
One morning, I noticed he was sleeping late, which was unusual. I tiptoed into his room to give him a kiss on his cheek, and see if he would wake up and talk with me (I was five). Before I could get close to him, he sprang from his bed and pinned me to the wall by my neck. Fortunately, he stopped himself before he went any further.
He screamed at me, and told me to NEVER do that again. I was forbidden from EVER entering his bedroom or approaching him while he was asleep. He told me I would get hurt.
There was no such thing as PTSD. The military did not have any resources for re-acclimating soldiers to civilian life. He had the church, liquor and the USMC, and that’s how he dealt with it. He provided for his family, and kept his girls under permanent house arrest to protect us. His bouts of anger and depression and drinking binges were just part of the package.
I feel like I never knew him.
The positive: One of the most common symptoms of PTSD are anger control issues. As a result of my father's PTSD, I have learned amazing conflict resolution skills. While my father was an amazing father, there were instances in which he would fly off the handle at a moments notice, for what seemed the most trivial of reasons. While he wasn't abusive towards me or my siblings, as a kid, it definitely scared the **** out of me. I learned at a young age how to calm him down, how to "perceive" an outburst coming, and how to resolve conflict before it was escalated (to prevent his blow-ups). As a result, I worked in social services as an Anger Management Specialist for several years and am respected as an authority on interpersonal conflict resolution amongst friends/family.
The negative: My father had a very hard time dealing with Social interactions outside of the home, and that was something I struggled with for many years (until recently). At first, I learned how to put up a facade to "cope" with these situations. Only now, in my mid 30's, do I feel close to being comfortable with who I am, socially.
One final thing that I would like to talk about, though, is my memories of the 4th of July when I was younger. I never did get to celebrate the 4th of July as a child, mostly because my father would eat tranquilizers, put in ear plugs, wear a blindfold, and try to sleep off the day in our basement. The sights and sounds of fireworks was very difficult for my father to handle. He wasn't the typical "flashback" kind of vet, but the 4th was always very difficult for him.
Until this day, I have a very bad taste in my mouth about how we celebrate the 4th, specifically because how hard it is for many vets (not just my father) to endure the sights and sounds of that day. After seeing the torture that it has caused for my father, all I can think about on the 4th is how terrifying that day is for many American that fought for our freedom. I refuse to participate in blowing off fireworks on that day out of respect for those that have paid the ultimate price (their sanity) for our freedom.
There must be some research showing why it is that some veterans who have seen terrible things and engaged in close mortal combat are not seriously scarred, And why some are.
All are not emotionally scarred.
Any one assuming such would have to provide a substantial body of evidence to prove it.
Men have been warriors since time immemorial. And until the time this problem arose - much combat was close. But they did not fight day after day. They did not sit in dug-outs being fired upon week after week. I think the heart of the problem is duration. Exhaustion and routinized fear leads to permanent damage. I think this is discussed in a major work on combat published after WW11 but I cannot recollect the source. The Ardennes Offensive and the siege of Bastogne were closely studied.
ANd yes, the trauma of war affects civilians in ways much worse; no place is safe. And trauma begets trauma.
We should never tell anyone that they have permanent damage or lifelong disorders just because the mental or behavioral health system has failed to provide holistic and integrative health methods for recovery of their patients and families. Placing the disorder label on a patient, offers HOPELESSNESS for our vets and injured warriors. These death sentences may also play into the recovery process and increase the numerous suicides and endangerment of self, families and others. Who wishes to have serious issues related to stress, anxiety and depression for your whole life, especially when so young and resilient before being deployed to War?
We need community coalitions and alliances so that we can offer treatment for the whole vet and their family. Join us if you can, we will make a difference for our great warriors and their families.
See our website for building alliances and our evidence based methods that treat the whole soldier and their family--they do work. http://jerryvest.pages.qpg.com