Although I served four years in the U.S. Army (April 1966 to April 1970), I was never in Viet Nam. I was lucky.
Watching the parades and celebrations on TV this weekend, I saw veterans from World War II and a couple from the Korean War. I couldn’t help but wonder if the press was focusing on WWII because it was the last war we won. Maybe it was coincidental that I didn’t see any vets from Viet Nam, the Gulf War, Iraq or Afghanistan.
We need to call attention to vets from these more recent wars. Statistics show that WWII infantry men saw, on average, 40 days of combat in four years of war. In Viet Nam, because of helicopters and because it was a ‘guerilla war’, the average infantry man saw 4 to 6 times as much combat in one year. Incredible statistic, isn’t it?
I recently read War and the Soul, by Edward Tick, published in 2005. Tick spent decades helping soldiers with the symptoms of PTSD. He cited the following statistic. During Viet Nam over 58,000 American soldiers died in combat or from combat related wounds. What’s worse is that the number of Viet Nam vets who committed suicide exceeded 60,000 in the 1990’s. Neither the government nor the press wants to discuss that number. To honor those 60,000 brave men and women we’d have to build a second Viet Nam War Memorial!
The Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan are yet again worse wars because so many vets have spent three or four or more tours fighting in them. This practice is inhumane. Yesterday a group of Chicago supporters marched 22 miles to call attention to the fact that 22 service men and women commit suicide every day; over 8000 victims per year. Many are from our more recent wars.
The press and the armed services talk positively of efforts to help veterans who have PTSD. But I don’t see any statistics to indicate their efforts are successful. When will our leaders in the armed services, Congress, and their civilian counterparts pay attention to this tragedy? Efforts to treat these honorable men and women as though they have a stress-related disorder are ineffective. Focusing on PTSD is like placing a bandaid on a gaping chest wound. It doesn’t stop the hemorrhaging.
May God bless our veterans, their friends and families, and may He help us find a more effective way to honor and heal our wounded warriors.
May 25, 2015 @ 16:16:29
I totally agree with everything you said. It’s important to find the core of the PTSD so it can be treated. I think it’s more man’s inhumanity to man…sort of like what ISIS does these days…unbelievable things…things you’d never envision anyone doing to anyone else.
May 27, 2015 @ 09:34:59
I agree. Unfortunately everyone has a ‘shadow’ side. I believe it is easier for the shadow to emerge under the terrible conditions of warfare.
May 25, 2015 @ 19:23:17
So glad that someone is addressing this crisis in our country. Losing that many vets daily to PTSD is not acceptable. Please keep speaking out, Paul.
May 27, 2015 @ 09:36:09
Thanks, Cleo. The subject is one I often think about, maybe because I was so lucky to avoid those circumstances.
May 26, 2015 @ 14:43:48
You are very right. Shouldn’t the focus be more heavily on the soldiers who survived those wars with poor outcomes, rather than the one we actually won? They’d need our support more strongly, especially as those are the ones that are still the most recent.
May 27, 2015 @ 09:39:41
And the worst part is that they have had so many deployments. I just heard a man interviewed on TV yesterday talking about how large scale multiple deployments never happened until the struggles in Iraq and Afghanistan. As with the recent ‘wars’ we’ve fought, none of our leaders was prepared to deal with the aftereffects of multiple deployments.
Jun 03, 2015 @ 12:26:16
I have to strongly disagree with you that WW2 is the last war we won. It is an insult to our military to say we lost wars. I do think we even won VietNam.. I cannot say our Americans lost