Over time, more and more grassroots efforts spring up as veterans try to help one another deal with the effects of combat trauma and PTSD. Some of these are simply conversations, where those who went share what the experience was like, and how they've suffered since -- and ideally, also what they've been able to do about it that helps. The Peoria Journal Star in today's paper has an article about just such a conversation, held by local central Illinois veterans in conjunction with a traveling exhibit of the Vietnam Wall. The article is short but poignant in the reminiscences shared by predominantly Vietnam veterans about how combat trauma and resultant PTSD has changed their lives, and not for the better. Click here for the link to that story.
There's nothing particularly "extraordinary" or "dramatic" about these men's PTSD or their comments about it -- but that's the thing. They've very representative of what actual people go through who weren't expecting the experience to scar them for years after combat. Just one example: a combat photographer with a Ph.D. talks about his own experience. "Divorce, alcohol, drugs, jail, attempted suicide ... I've done them all," he said. If combat trauma is the stone thrown into the pond, just think of the ripple effects of every item he just mentioned. Sadly, combat trauma affects not only the participants, but also many of the people in their lives. Recently I received an unsolicited memoir from a former Marine and Vietnam veteran about his experiences with war and PTSD, and on practically every page the same thing ran true: the enormous remorse and regret he felt from the pain he'd inadvertently inflicted on his family members, because of what he was going through at the time, and couldn't cope with. Combat trauma, left untreated (and we don't mean, with drugs and alcohol ;-), can become the uninvited guest in far too many veterans' homes and every family gathering.
The German word "Doppelgänger" or "double-goer" comes to us from literature, but seems to have some application with what veterans go through as well. The Doppelgänger is a person's double, often but not exclusively seen as an evil twin, and often in ominous contexts (premonition of someone's death, etc.). But in the straight meaning of a connected but separate other self, a veritable "double" self, it conveys what some veterans seem to go through. The memory of war they've experienced is so profound and powerful, it's permanently "attached" to them. When they return to society, and have to "re-integrate," the combat self actually never leaves them, and this seems to produce a lot of the pain that they feel. They frequently acknowledge being "permanently changed" by war -- but yet when the war is over, or when they come back, they're expected to integrate back into society, and into the lives they formerly led. Many veterans talk about how almost no attention is paid to this experience by the military: you come back, and have to figure this part out for yourself, but it can be deeply troubling. You can't shake the person you became in war -- in fact, it's always with you, as a "second self." But at some point you have to come to terms with the fact that both those selves are you, and there is no separation. In a lot of the pain you hear, see and feel from Vietnam veterans as they share about their experiences, you get a very profound impression that they are in fact feeling shame (and yet connectedness) with the person they became because of war, as well as a desire to protect their loved ones, however incapably, from that very person. Tremendously, what you also see is a deep desire for other, more recent veterans to profit from their experience. The "older brothers" (and sisters, but it's mostly men) want their "younger brothers and sisters" not to have to experience the tremendous pain, ostracizing, and neglect they felt -- as well as the inability to come to terms with what it meant. The Vietnam veterans seem to have a deep, and laudable, desire to become the "readjustment counselors" for today's OIF/OEF veterans. However, their own healing has to take place first -- and from the expressions of deep pain that get conveyed, you can tell how difficult that healing really is, and sadly, how infrequently it's been able to take place. (True healing, after all, means going through the pain, processing it, and integrating it into the whole self. Many people accomplish a "form" of superficial healing, which turns out to abandon them later, by masking over the pain with other "drugs," from drugs and alcohol, to social isolation, to even workaholism, to keep the pain at bay.)
Although we need to write more about this topic separately, even "workaholism" can be a drug to suppress painful memories and experiences. This "drug" is better suited to some than others -- probably the 'Type A' types "enjoy" it most -- but it's effective as far as it goes, which of course is never quite far enough. I heard an amazing story from a veterans service officer the other day about the most elapsed time he'd ever seen between someone suffering from combat trauma and realizing he had PTSD. That's referred to as "delayed onset" but check out how delayed it really was, because of workaholism, most likely. A World War II veteran, 84 years old. Had fought in Normandy, Ardennes, the Battle of the Bulge. He felt he'd led a "blessed life," and had in fact just retired (at 84!). But in his retirement, with all sorts of unstructured time on his hands, started experiencing nightmares, and would wake up, having soaked the bed. The nightmares were about what he'd experienced, over 60 years ago(!!!), but which he'd finally had "time" to start bringing up from the vault of memory. And he was suddenly in terrific psychic pain from this. Although I applaud the amazing things this man must have done during the intervening 60 years to consider he'd led a "blessed life," I can only wish that he'd also been able to find some healing during that time as well. Experiencing delayed onset PTSD in your mid-80s, from battle you saw in your 20s, must be a terrible thing indeed. It's also another reminder about how combat trauma continues to affect veterans from all wars. And how extending compassion, wisdom and healing to veterans from every war is part of what we ought to be doing, as a society, and often do quite minimally, if at all.
