Photo of Brest France 1944 by Cptn Claxton Ray, 360th EAB US Army during WWII, University Archives in St. John’s Newfoundland, public domain.
‘What Happens in Vietnam Does Not Stay in Vietnam’: The Truth Behind PTSD in US Combat Veterans and Their Families The Vietnam War is often described as one that left the greatest psychological impact on those who served. Combat veterans in particular developed far more severe trauma and PTSD than those who served elsewhere.1 Few discuss the impact of PTSD on veterans’ families. Affectionate spouses and parents returned from the Vietnam war as zombie-like beings.2 Vietnam combat veterans whose trauma symptoms were left untreated suffered internally, while also impacting the lives of spouses and children who lacked support as well. Scholars estimate that over one third of the two million Americans who returned home from the Vietnam war suffered PTSD.3 The DSM-IV explains that those with PTSD tend to be irritable, short-tempered, and hypervigilant while also being more prone to nightmares, anxiety, paranoia, depression, emotional numbing, distress, sporadic aggression, and withdrawal.4 One combat veteran, commenting on its severity, called it “Permanent Traumatic Stress Disorder,” something that has stuck with him for decades.5 He claims that “[a]nyone who tells you the Vietnam War ended on April 30th, 1975 is a liar … It came back with all of us. Buried deep in our psyche.”6 Considering the enduring effects of PTSD, he concludes, “[t]he Vietnam war will end only when the last veteran or the last family member of a veteran dies.”7
Soldiers Laying Down Covering Fire. W. Wolny. Wikimedia Commons.
29
