Post-Tramautic Stress Disorder in Veterens

As long as there have been soldiers, they have always carried with them haunting memories that plague them for their entire life. Many soldiers will never adapt to civilian life simply because they cannot become accustomed to it after experiencing something as shocking and traumatic as warfare. It is not uncommon to see war veterans never adapt to civilian life and even kill themselves, as Norman Bowker did in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried. After all, who can blame them? The horrors of warfare are all well known to many people ever since World War 2 saw millions of people massacred in the most horrible ways possible with bombs and ammunition. So how exactly does one simply “adapt” to a quiet peaceful society after experiencing something so horrible? The hard truth to face, is that many do not; and they are all suffering from a condition known as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Yet even with the knowledge of this condition, society still fails to pay attention to many of these men and women who experienced hell and now have to live with the memories of it all.

There are many definitions to what Post Traumatic Stress Disorder actually is, but the official one lies in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which is the main guide for Psychologists to use when diagnosing a patient’s mental health issue. It explains Post Trauma as basically a condition where a person is constantly plagued by memories of a traumatic event that they where exposed to in the past; be it a disaster, murder, rape, or in many cases, war. The person often has this condition if they have constant outbursts of anger, a hard time sleeping, or extreme difficulty with concentrating. There are countless symptoms when describing this disorder, and it is not uncommon for them to be very extreme in some circumstances.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a serious condition, and it can seriously impair one’s ability to function in society. Many of its victims like Norman Bowker, may become completely detached from society and may have difficulty working or forming relationships with people. Norman had trouble finding work, and only seemed to open up to his father and the writer Tim O’Brien. He also found himself constantly driving around the lake and observing the town just to get his mind off the war. Sometimes he’d do it for hours and he would just constantly drive around it and stare at the lake while listening to the radio. He ended up committing suicide as a result, because he simply could not come to terms with the horrors of the war that had constantly plagued his conscience. It’s a sad, but not uncommon story about veterans coming home from the war.

War is not the only place to obtain this condition, as there have been many cases outside of war veterans involving Post-Trauma. Many people in New York on 9/11 experienced some severe cases of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after seeing thousands die in one day completely unexpectedly. In Fact, the New York Times reported in August 30th, 2007 that the prevalence of post trauma among 9/11 workers was one for every eight, which is much higher in proportion than the national average at 4 percent. There are now a variety of treatments available, but sadly, not everybody gets to benefit from them. In the film Sicko by Michael Moore, Michael showcases a man who lost most of his teeth while grinding them in his sleep from bad dreams after helping to clean up Ground Zero on 9/11. This man was later diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and given treatment in Cuba, not the United States.

Post Traumatic 9/11 victims are not the only ones who are denied concern for their disorder in society. In fact, many others have had it worse when it came to post-trauma. In World War 2, when signs of post-trauma and combat stress where beginning to become prevalent among the soldiers, they where often looked upon as cowards. The most famous incident of this view was during General George Patton’s slapping of a soldier who was complaining of his unwillingness to fight due to being constantly disturbed by the horrors around him. Although Patton received a lot of bad press for this incident, his actions where not singled out just to him. Many generals would often have soldiers suffering from combat stress bullied and beaten until they snapped out of their “cowardice”. This was obviously not the best method, and many troops suffering from the condition and deemed cowards where executed.

The treatment of post-trauma victims has definitely improved from what we did to them during the first two world wars, but it is still far from perfect. There are still many modern cases of the disorder that go untreated, and this was the most prevalent during the Vietnam War. Vietnam saw some of the worst atrocities ever committed by the U.S government in warfare, and millions of lives where affected as a result. Millions of people died, and those who came back alive brought home horrible memories of brutal warfare and fallen comrades. “Blaming the Veteran”, an online website dedicated to Post Trauma in soldiers and the politics, states that “real men and women are not uniformed machines that can perform under great stress with little consequence”. In other words, human beings cannot expect to go into something as catastrophic as war and not take anything back from it. Many however, take even more out of it than they should, and that is what often leads to post-trauma.

If anything can make the case for society not caring about its veterans despite their post-traumatic stress, it would be from the tragic story of Manuel Babbitt. The New York Times wrote an article in 1999 concerning the case and the execution of Manuel Babbitt, who murdered a 78 year old woman in 1980.