Finally, a newspaper documents Eddie Livingston's struggle on its editorial pages. They write, giving him his due but was it too little, too late?
"Eddie's life must spur change."
If people noticed Eddie Livingston, they saw a small, shabby man with a white beard wearing tattered clothes and a soiled bucket hat. They may have smelled him before they saw him, as Eddie's clothing was always in need of a good washing. They wouldn't know that Eddie and his wife lived in a decaying house without water or electricity.
They wouldn't know that by anyone's definition, Eddie Livingston was one of our nation's most esteemed war heroes. They only saw a man who appeared as a vagrant, who shunned other people, who trusted no one, and stuttered badly on the rare occasions when he would talk with others.
They wouldn't know that Eddie Livingston had been among our nation's bravest soldiers in World War II, that he was a teenaged paratrooper dropped into Normandy as part of an advance team for an initiative that would become known as D-Day, that he was captured by the Germans on that mission and held in a prison camp for almost a year, that he was awarded seven Purple Hearts, three Bronze Stars, a Distinguished Service Cross, and two Presidential Unit citations.
People he encountered may have never guessed that the harrowing experience of war, particularly life as a prisoner of war, was what took a psychological toll on Eddie. They could not have known.
But plenty of people in the network of services our nation provides for veterans knew. Eddie struggled for years to get his benefits, then lived with his wife in heartrending surroundings that suggest he felt unfit for the world.
A story featured in the May 31 Eagle chronicles Eddie Livingston's tormented post-war life, particularly how he never received the help he needed for his post-traumatic stress disorder.
The system failed this decorated war hero and, in doing so, fails every American. Our nation must do a better job of supporting the men and women who have contributed their time, their sanity, their health, and their lives to the service of their country."
