Everything You Know (about Vets) Is Wrong

[r2Dtoo]

http://news.msn.com/us/what-you-think-you-know-about-veterans-is-probably-wrong

 

 

[AnneLine]

R2DToo, that's really interesting.

 

I have a book in my home, called "Shook Over Hell" which is an examination of what we would call PTSD in the records of Civil War Veterans and comparing their experiences to those of WWII Vets and Vietnam Vets... and makes a pretty good case that there was a TON of PTSD among Civil War Vets... 

 

http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/98mar/mindwar.htm

 

That book was written in 1977 -- BEFORE 9/11 and the subsequent military engagements in the middle east.   I've often wondered whether its thesis would still hold now....

 

Is there such a thing as PTSD?  Of course.  I think so. But there are also many other serious events that cause similar symptoms.

 

The author of Shook Over Hell makes a pretty good case that it really IS the lack of work, lack of people to listen that create many of the problems... as well as the inability to go back to the world they had known before.  And a series of experiences that are really hard to integrate in anyone's future life.   A reminder to pray for all of them....

 

He also makes a really good point that the experience of the WWII Vet is the EXCEPTION to the experience of many vets, because there was such a boom after WWII, including many veterans' benefits for education, housing, etc. that made the return after that war much, much easier for those vets.

 

BUT...that doesn't mean they got off unscathed.... my dad and my mom were WWII vets (they married very late because of the Depression and WWII....) and both of them had serious problems with drinking, and my dad with depression and what had to have been some level of PTSD.   So, yeah, I do think that they suffered, but I think there may have been more resources for that group of vets.  And, of course, they won that war.  THAT helps, trust me... you don't feel like your service and sacrifices were in vain!