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Per the Normandy invasion.....was there anything more stressful than getting on amphibious vehicles, knowing that there was a good chance you would not live?
Imagine the morning of, when the catholics got their last eucharists from the chaplains, thinking they might be going to heaven soon(dying), or any other faiths saying the sign of the cross, and praying like there was no tomorrow riding that vehicle a few minutes before it landed..
And walking through the surf hearing thousands of machine gun nest shots, and, after spending months or years more, surviving all this, and living a full life, per careers and family?
Living a normal life again at home is the only thing that kept these fighters going, actually....
Which they came back home and did...
Have you ever lived with someone that went through this?
My father was in charge of one of those landing crafts. That was one story he did tell us about. The gunner just going full blast while they huddled down ready to hit the beach.
The last Eucharist. One of my most vivid memories. The day before the Iraq invasion. Attended mass along with everyone else. The priest leading the service was a Marine chaplain. He was going with them. Thousands of army and marine guys had set up at our air base.
Priest is giving out the host to all these guys. One tall blond kid comes up, throws himself down on one knee. You could hear his knee hit the floor. I imagined wings sprouting out of his back - an angel in our midst. So quiet. The chaplain embraced him and gave him a blessing. Who knows if he came back. But I'll never forget.
I was diagnosed with PTSD a year after I was the victim of a home invasion. It was an extremely traumatic experience in addition to the fact that I was injured. I got through the experience in a way that made everyone think I was fine. Then a year afterward a friend of mine was shot on the street in broad daylight fending off a robbery attempt. He lived but I fell apart. Cracked up.
I had an explosive temper. I would hyperventilate at the drop of a hat. I would shake for no reason and cry for absurd reasons. I had a very good job at the time. Lucky for me, my employer recognized that I was not in my right mind. I was sent to a psych hospital for an evaluation. The intake examination was so upsetting, they made me stay the night. I took a couple of additional days off for further evaluation and was set up for outpatient therapy appointments and I was put on anti-depressant medication.
Had I not had a job at the time, I definitely was in no shape to go out and get one from people who didn't even know me. So I have a lot of sympathy for vets, seriously distressed from active duty, who are expected to separate from the service and then just go about procuring a civilian job as if they were never damaged by the emotional trauma they suffered. Do I think there are malingerers who claim PTSD who don't have it? Yes. Do I think it's a good idea for someone who has had PTSD never to work again? Absolutely not. But I also think it's pretty easy to get PTSD and we should not overlook those who need help. If it means some losers fall through the cracks and take what they don't really need, that's better than underestimating the number of sufferers.
We owe these people support and treatment, and SS disability payments when necessary. They didn't start the conflicts they were sent to address. We have to trust the VA doctors to get sufferers through their ordeal so they can function productively in their futures. It might take awhile but I have every faith, based on my experience, that PTSD is treatable for the vast majority of people.
But one of the primary components of recovery is support from friends and family. My stable job also provided my life with structure that I have no doubt aided me in rebuilding my life. PTSD sufferers need to take their treatment seriously, do what the doctors tell them, and try to transition back to normal responsibilities as soon as possible. Structure and having to fulfill responsibilities help us to achieve mental health.
Our society needs to take this illness very seriously and not expect people to buck up and cure themselves from the results of their very real psychic trauma. Because if they don't get help, the symptoms often resurface later and are even harder to treat. I know both WWII and Vietnam vets who are prime examples of that. They buried what happened to them but it came back to haunt them.
Not much to say after something so beautifully written and from the heart....
The key is in several sentences you wrote....PTSD is treatable for the vast majority of people, and that they need help.......
Again, the problem I had is the helpless victimization painted upon sufferers, which should not be from any mental disorder, civilian or military. This disempowers the sufferer, makes him a reactive bystander to his fate, and relegates him to the fates....
They need help and love from family and friends, indeed. But, more than anything else, hope that they can be self-sufficient, and provide for themselves and others.....
My two cents from a RVN combat vet. I think it certainly applies in some cases. I also think it's a cop out in most and to those I say, get over it. You aint been through nor seen anything millions before you didn't deal with.
You can see what is considered for compensation and the percentage awarded depending on severity. And they have a unique way of totaling your compensation if you are rated for more than one ailment.
if you are rated 40% for one part and 20% on something else - it isn't 60 %. Its only 50%. After they account for the 40%, you are still 60% OK, so 20% of 60 is 12. 40 + 12 = 52, or 50% - round down.
Here is the link to the monthly payments according to rating.
There's a difference between veterans that went outside the wire on a daily basis to do patrols and things of that nature, who put themselves on the line constantly, who took the fight to the enemy, and a veteran that never left the Baskin Robbins shop on a staging base in Kuwait. Or a veteran that never even left stateside during his/her service.
As with anything, the military is not all the same. Not every soldier, sailor, airman, etc., does the same jobs, takes the same risks, exposes themselves to the same danger.
Some think all people in the military are subject to PTSD, when that is simply not the case. Most veterans do not deploy to a combat zone of theater, and even more do not go on the front lines like the infantry.
So I take it as an offense when those who did not get exposed to the same dangers as infantry, Spec Ops unit, claim PTSD, when in fact they did not do the same jobs. Now I know soldiers of different MOS's did in fact do infantry type duties in places like Iraq, but that's different.
All of these veterans that take advantage of the system, are doing so riding the coattails of those who actually fought the enemy in war, or exposed themselves to danger in combat zones. Basically, they're using this whole Iraq/War on Terror time period of the past decade to cheat the system. Absolutely shameless and disgraceful.
For the record, I served for years in the Navy on a ship as a machinist. Should I have claimed PTSD for being stuck in a hot engine room for hours at time during patrols in the Middle East? Of course not.
Exactly....and many of those that served in those hot zone areas would not want or claim PTSD, perhaps even if they had it to some extent. As someone mentioned somewhere else, everyone has different inherent base level tolerations of stress.....In one of the first posts, a VA worker mentioned a vet who claimed disability and got the same from being traumatized from his commandant at Boot Camp, never serving outside the same( a month total in the military).....
I would say that, being on a humvee which ran over a mine, or prolonged heavy combat, surely could quality one for PTSD, and disability, but even so, these individuals need to be encouraged to move on with their lives with strength in cilvilian transition, within a reasonable amount of time, not to be a lifelong victim......
The fact that only 1% of those on dis for PTSD are getting downgraded says that the VA simply does not know what to do with these vets other than to hand out meds and checks..
My DH broke his neck while on AD. He was so lucky that he recovered and was able to stay on AD (with some limitations - never again to have a perfect pt score and could not drive Military vehicles other than a sedan). As the years went by there were physical changes to his neck and spine and he had to Retire at 23 years after his last deployment to the sandbox.
He tried to work in the civilian sector but had issues with sitting (desk work), standing for longer than a few minutes (any physical type of work) and eventually had to retire permanently. He has since had three surgeries on his neck and has quite a bit of pain.
He applied for VA disability and has been rated at 80%; after one of his appointments he received a letter saying he had an appointment at the VA. He did not make this appointment and had no idea what it was for. After trying for HOURS to reach a human being to find out about this appointment (and never actually speaking to a person) we went to the appointment (more than 2 hours away). It was because they were certain that he FORGOT to mention his PTSD and wanted him to be rated for it.
He told the Dr. that he did not forget to apply for it because he did NOT have PTSD. A couple of days later there was another letter for yet another appointment. This time he contacted the patient advocate and was told that the Dr. though he was in denial and wanted him to see a shrink. He told them NO but, every time he has an appointment he has to deny PTSD since there seems to be a permanent notation in his file that automatically pops up.
As to the disabled finding work: I have been stuck in a wheelchair since 1995 due to a CVA when I was 29. While rehabbing I had a serious fall that resulted in an incomplete break at my T-12.
I worked until 2000 when I lost my driver's license due to becoming legally blind. I still had good usable vision but without a way to get to work I was SOL. I later lost all vision, but when we moved (DH Retired) to an area with handivan access I attempted to find employment. It was totally impossible since people had no idea what to do with someone with multiple disabilities ( it seems that I could be a paraplegic and be employable OR blind and employable but not both).
There was always someone more qualified despite my B.S., M.S. and P.h.D. (all degrees as a Summa *** Laude) and the willingness to work at almost any level. C'est la vie; but I admit that it hurts when someone comments that my DH and I "leech" off of society).
The courage of both of you is amazing...your spirits, your tenacity......I'm sorry you got caught in such a bureaucratic buzzsaw at the VA, but that's simply part of them being overwhelmed and overworked.
I am proud of your husband for what he has done. He gave it all he had, when he could, and so did you as well.
You both have plenty of worth regardless of what physically has happened. We all can give something of ourselves, and are needed by someone.
Enjoy life, hang in there, and be proud, again, of the fight you both have in you, and continue to have.
Maybe if you had had your PTSD treated, it would have lasted for two years instead of 30.
Do you folks who think PTSD sufferers should just buck up and endure their pain have any idea how many of our vets commit suicide? (According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, a U.S. military veteran commits suicide every 65 minutes!) Do you have any idea how many of them commit battery on their spouses or worse yet kill someone in a fit of rage? Do you know how many become alcoholics or drug addicts in an attempt to self-medicate their symptoms (whether or not they realize that's what they're doing)? Do you know how many become homeless due to an inability to function in normal society? (See links below for stats.)
This has been true about vets from EVERY WAR, not just recent vets. Many of my peers had fathers who were WWII vets and some were terrible fathers. Explosive episodes of anger, alcoholism, physical abuse of the family, etc. People raised in environments like that often fail to achieve their own potential, so the effects of untreated PTSD lasts for more than one generation, even when it wasn't called PTSD or even recognized officially as the result of war service. Then we have vets my own age were ignored when they returned from Vietnam. They're dying off now because people who have untreated depression — let alone homelessness or some of the other issues Vietnam vets have to an unacceptable degree — rarely live a normal life span. That's how hard untreated depression is on the human body.
As for going after undeserved financial support, veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan have only a 2% higher rate of unemployment than the general public. That's not all that much malingering. Especially not considering that these same people are 75% more likely to die in a car accident than their civilian peers and according to the VA, vets with combat stress commit at least one act of spousal abuse in their first year post-deployment. If we could improve those statistics would we choose not to?
It unconscionable to me that people would deny veterans of any war treatment for their mental stress because of outmoded ideas of what people "should" be able to withstand. It's enough to ask a person to be brave on the battlefield. To expect them to deal with their haunted memories of their service for the rest of their lives is too much.
And if you can't think about the vets, think about their children. More than two million American children have experienced a parent being sent to war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan. To date about 500,000 have been diagnosed with clinical depression. Children!
I am talking about not just the victimization of sufferers, making them feel as if they, having this malady, are not able to function, but the lack of hope therein.
In those former wars you mention, most people did not consider themselves to have anything worth filing disability for, unless it was physical. I would say most would not have even taken the same if it was offered to them way back when.
We are talking about empowerment and moving on, not about the reactive, stuck-in-place methodology of dealing with this today.
Most people with trauma of all sorts(and it is a rough, brutal world out there) still move on and contribute best they can, civilian as well. Wallowing in the same does no one any good. Empowering one to move on fully with their lives certainly does.
I certainly don't expect all the vets that have experienced these things to have 100% down time(not working) for years, with all that time to relive haunted memories. The best way to get rid of those is to become functional again, and work, with courage, raising families, or meaning something very much to a significant other, with love and strength.
I have said all I can, so I will let anyone who wants to to continue commenting on this thread....
No, I have not served. Yes, I have many relatives that have. I am no judge of the pain anyone coming home from war has brought home. I also know that the VA can be a maddening place to deal with, and does not give very good care, if you, that is, can even get an appointment. I am sure dealing with the same for benefits is tough as well.
I wish the best for all former and current soldiers out there, and wish all of them and their families all the strength, love,
and encouragement possible.
God bless all of you, and I hope no one has taken anything I have said wrong.
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