[Vermont Lt]

Thats a nice way to look at it.

I had two uncles in the Pacific. They were both walking PTSDs when I knew them as a young adult thirty years after the fact.

One drank his problems away. The other one was depressed to the point of losing most of the good things in his life.

They sure had it. They did not treat it. They ALL didn’t just go on.

I am not discounting the folks who did come home and get on with it. But there is a common theme that these men just sucked it up and came home and “went on with their lives.”

ALL wars take a toll for decades after the battles are over.

[poconopundit]

Good post. The suffering of veterans endures long after the guns are silent  One of the finest tribute to veterans is Emerson's Concord Hymn:

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
   Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood
   And fired the shot heard round the world.


The foe long since in silence slept;
   Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
   Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.


On this green bank, by this soft stream,
   We set today a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
   When, like our sires, our sons are gone.


Spirit, that made those heroes dare
   To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
   The shaft we raise to them and thee.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[laplata]

Good post. Right on.

My Dad was in the CBI Theater of War. He lost three

childhood friends in the war. One of his buddies survived

the Bataan Death March and came back missing some fingers

which the Japs had chopped of with a hatchet. Those men were

all deeply affected at different levels and dealt with it

in different ways.

[stylin19a]

For some, their therapist was Jack Daniels....