'Good Kill'

[Peter1469]

How is it that the vast majority of men who fought WWII seemed to come home and deal with the memories and demons?

Is it because they didn't have time to be miserable? They had to come home and get back to work and provide for their families?

I don't know. I have not looked into it any further back than the current wars.

But there were WWII vets who had serious problems. I don't know the numbers.

[Polecat]

Shell shock was actually from WWI. There are some old beat up films of soldiers with extreme cases of it that exhibit tremors, ticks and obvious physical issues.

[Don]

One of my neighbors fought in Korea. Came home, raised 5 children, worked at a paper mill until he retired. His children were scared to death of him and he ended up killing himself in his back yard at about age 70. Yeap, none of them had a problem back then...

No one said that they didn't have problems. We weren't scared of my dad. He 'ended up" being killed by a drunk driver at 44 years of age. That dad might have frightened his children and committed suicide even if he had never been in the war.

[PolWatch]

Men in the 1950's were not likely to admit to any emotional problems....it was unmanly. The only ones that were heard from were those who just could not function at all. Does the phrase 'lives of quiet desperation' give an idea of what vets dealt with?

Just because the VA did not acknowledge PTSD until after Vietnam does not mean it did not exist in the same numbers as today. People cope in different ways and to different levels of success. How long did it take for the VA to admit that Vets were/are dying because of Agent Orange? Denying the existence of the problem does not mean it is not real.

Are there people who lie about PTSD? of course. How many people lie about having a bad back? Believing that either doesn't exist because of a few fakers is ridiculous.

[PolWatch]

No one said that they didn't have problems. We weren't scared of my dad. He 'ended up" being killed by a drunk driver at 44 years of age. That dad might have frightened his children and committed suicide even if he had never been in the war.

My example was in response to the question about how did some manage to come home & function if they had PTSD. This man was miserable all his life and made his family's life miserable. The reason I mentioned this man is because he told my husband that he wished they had treatment for PTSD in his day because he believed that was his problem. In spite of his problems he functioned, after a fashion....until overwhelmed by the effort required to continue. You are right, he could have been batty as a Bessie bug without Korea....but he didn't have the opportunity to find out.

[Mr. Right]

Our great uncle (who's nearing his end) was a Captain in the 443rd in WW2 (Purple Heart Battalion). My cousin, his son tells of his yelling out in his sleep. We owe so much to so many from WW2.

[Polecat]

My example was in response to the question about how did some manage to come home & function if they had PTSD. This man was miserable all his life and made his family's life miserable. The reason I mentioned this man is because he told my husband that he wished they had treatment for PTSD in his day because he believed that was his problem. In spite of his problems he functioned, after a fashion....until overwhelmed by the effort required to continue. You are right, he could have been batty as a Bessie bug without Korea....but he didn't have the opportunity to find out.

I think that is a big part of the equation and a major reason it was poo poo'd for so long. People are wired differently and some come off the factory floor ready to snap and others are "bullet" proof. Throw a little front line carnage in the mix and you see how different we can react to the same stimuli.

[PolWatch]

I can not imagine what combat requires of every individual that experiences it. To kill someone face to face, or use a drone or drop a bomb, I think they all face problems. I have read reports that civilians in Britain during WWII developed PTSD due to the bombing....having to live with the danger of death at any time.

If we ask these men to defend us, we owe them all the help they need. Its not weakness or pretending. It's just as real as a missing arm or leg.

[MisterVeritis]

The hells angels were guys that missed the thrills, action and violence of war.

PTSD was called shell shock after WWII. A kid I knew had their uncle living with them who had it. Most of the time he sat on the porch staring off into space. He couldn't really do anything like work or have normal associations with people outside his family. They always told us to be careful around him and that loud noises scared him.

I think most people were different back then. My dad was a paratrooper who saw action in Korea in 1950/51. Wounded twice and truly experienced the horror of war. The only people he shared those experiences with were my mom and a very few close friends who were also in the war. He just sucked it up, did his job and went on to raise 7 kids.

My father was wounded once in Korea after coming through WWII unscathed. A few years after he returned from Korea he became a bartender as an additional job with the US Army as his primary job. He drank alcohol to suppress the pain in his legs. He was prone to alcoholism, as am I. He served in Viet-nam in addition to WWII and Korea.

I never liked him.

I had a good friend who also served in multiple wars. He told me once that the vast majority of people who served, fought, killed and saw friends wounded or killed, recognized that wars will be fought as long as we remain human. Most accept it and move on. Many cannot. They live on the edge of sanity for the rest of their lives. Some live on this side of the edge. And some live on the other side of the edge.

I hated my father. But now I understand him.

[Polecat]

I can not imagine what combat requires of every individual that experiences it. To kill someone face to face, or use a drone or drop a bomb, I think they all face problems. I have read reports that civilians in Britain during WWII developed PTSD due to the bombing....having to live with the danger of death at any time.

If we ask these men to defend us, we owe them all the help they need. Its not weakness or pretending. It's just as real as a missing arm or leg.

It is going to turn out that many different sources besides military action are causing much of what we see as a break down in society.