Etiology of
Combat-Related
Post Traumatic Stress Disorders
(By Psychologist Dr. Jim Goodwin)
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When the veteran finally returned home, his fantasy about his
DEROS date was replaced by a rather harsh reality. DEROS, this widely used
practice came to be questioned and was recognized that it has been used as a
convenient way to eliminate many individuals who had psychological problems
dating from their combat service. As previously stated, WWII veterans took
weeks, sometimes months, to return home with their buddies. Vietnam vets
returned home alone. Many made the transition from rice paddies to southern
California in less than 36 hours. The civilian population of the WWII era had
been treated to movies about the struggles of readjustment for veterans to
prepare the civilian population to help the veteran. The civil
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Symptoms of Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder:
Chronic and/or Delayed
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"A Veteran Is…"
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America's war veterans come in a wide variety of sizes, shapes and ages. Their collective experience spans two world wars and several foreign conflicts. They have followed war rules through Flanders Field, dropped from landing barges on the beaches of Normandy, faced the icy cold of Pork Chop Hill, and trudged through the rice paddies of the Mekong Delta. But, regardless of differences in makeup and experience, all veterans share a common bond—a brotherhood of memory and hard-won wisdom that helps define their character. A veteran is the first man up as the flag passes by on the 4th of July, and the last one down. For he has been a witness to the blood and tears make this and other parades possible. 
A veteran is a man of peace, soft-spoken, slow to anger, quick to realize that those who talk most about the glory of war are those who know least about its horror. He never jokes about war: he's been there, and he still sees on memory's vivid screen the wounded and the dying, the widows and the orphans; he knows first-hand that no war is good and that the only thing that is worse than war is slavery. He is friend to all races of man, begrudging none; he carries with him the knowledge that it is not the man who is the enemy but enslavement and false ideologies. Those whom he once faced across the hostile battle lines, he now esteems as his brothers. A veteran is at once proud and humble--proud of the fact that in more than two hundred years no foreign enemy has set foot on American soil: and humble in the realization that many of his comrades who helped him make this aim a reality, never returned. More than anything else, a veteran loves freedom. He can spend a whole afternoon doing nothing—just because it suits him and just because he's paid the price to do what he wants with his time. He also takes a personal pride in freedom of others—in men and women attending the church of their choice; in friends voting on how they choose; and in children sleeping quietly, without fear to interrupt their slumber. A veteran is every man grown up a little taller—a person who understands the awesome price of life's intangibles of freedom, justice and democracy. His motto is to live and let live. But, if he had to, if he had to choose between servitude and conflict, the veteran would once again answer the call to duty. Because, above all—above all else—a veteran is an American. |
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LZ Reflections
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population of the Vietnam era was treated
to the horrors of var on the 6 o;clock news. They were tired and numb to the
whole experience. Some were even fighting mad and many veterans were witness to
this fact. Some WWII veterans came home to victory parades; Vietnam veterans
returned in defeat and witnessed anti-war marches and protests. For WWII
veterans resort hotels were taken over and made into redistribution stations
through which veterans could bring their wives and devote two weeks to the
initial home coming. For Vietnam veterans, there were screaming anti-war crowds
and locked military bases where they were processed back into civilian life in
two or three days. Those veterans who were struggling to make it back home
finally did. However, they had drastically changed and their world would never
be the same. Their fantasies were just that—fantasies. What they had
experienced in Vietnam and on their return to their homes in the United States
would leave an indelible mark that many never erase.