The short answer is, as a society, we share it. But the brunt of it is often felt, as we see in the Washington Post piece from this weekend, most directly around home and hearth.
In the front matter of Aphrodite Matsakis, Ph.D.'s original book, Vietnam Wives (she has a new book out this year, which we've recently mentioned), she writes this in the dedication of the book:
"From the beginning of time, men have fought each other and have suffered greatly as a result. Their women, children and other family members have also suffered. To the "forgotten warriors" -- the wives, children and other family members of Vietnam veterans afflicted with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder -- this book is sincerely dedicated."
As the recent video from the Norfolk County (Massachusetts) District Attorney's Office demonstrates, when a veteran comes home from combat, he (or she) needs time to re-adjust to the family, workplace, friends, hobbies, neighborhood, community, school and/or place of worship that he (or she) left behind. Each of those environments and each of those relationships can be a source of friction and frustration, or ideally, and ultimately, some form of refuge. But the adaptation is real, and so are the difficulties the returning veteran encounters. What is often left out of the equation, also, is the difficulty encountered by the veteran's primary relationships, who are also affected by what the returning vet is suffering. In some ways, we don't want to highlight this too much, because one of the triggers of suicide seems to be a sense of being a "burden" on others; but the reality is, the hardships of PTSD and combat trauma weigh on a veteran's loved ones, as they do on the veteran.
Fortunately, a certain amount of supportive material is targeted to a vet's close relationships. The books of Aphrodite Matsakis, Ph.D. and Patience Mason speak to these needs directly (see booklist in sidebar), as do a few of the resources available through other sources. Over time, we hope that more and more attention is paid, not just to veterans and what they're suffering as a result of combat trauma, but also to their famiies and friends, who may encounter new pressures, demands and hardships, as they care for their returning veterans.
