How would you characterize your experience in service? Any PTSD? Nightmares? Flashbacks?
I sincerely respect your father’s service. Holy Moses! There are not many who have ribbons from all three of those wars. Really an amazing Patriot.
Your uncle too. Merchant Marine was no joke in those times. I had a relative that lied about his age (15) in WWII, the Navy turned him down but the Merchant Marine signed him on. He did three dangerous years in the Pacific Theater. Crazy times.
You do admit there are some really screwed up folks that come back with PTSD, right?
It’s too bad that veterans of previous generations didn’t get help for their ailments. Seeing a psych or a shrink or even a counselor before the early oughts was a no-go. Up through the early 2000s and even after, if you had issues, you could never admit it. You security clearance would be pulled, and you would be re-assigned to handing towels out at the post gym.
In so many cases through decades, the solution was to just suicide. Whether through drugs or alcohol, fast cars, gambling, motorcycles, or just painting the Sisteen Chapel on your ceiling with a shotgun.
Times have changed and mental health care is much improved these days. The old stigmas are gone, thankfully.
No PTSD for me. I was shot at while flying, but shot at badly and I can’t say if affected me emotionally at all.
PTSD IS a real thing, but it is also something people can learn about online and use to get 100% disability they did not deserve. My former SIL was like that. He read up on how to get a claim approved and how to act the part.
I couldn’t prove it or I would have turned him in. He admitted to me he researched how to do it but I wasn’t wearing a wire...
He’s dead now. Car accident. He WAS a bit weird, but he was every bit as weird BEFORE HE EVER DEPLOYED.
But yes, it is real for some. My Dad apparently suffered from some trauma he would not discuss. Didn’t stop him from being a devoted husband and father and being successful in life. But his life would have been better if he could have gotten help.
That is the trouble with “disability”. Some are genuine. But once it means a lifetime of free income, it WILL attract a lot of fraud. And with the Internet, frauds can research how they need to act and what they need to say.
How does one help the real victims without paying out tons on the grifters? I don’t know.