Post Traumatic Stress: Psychological Problems & Vietnam Vets

By VVAW

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"My life is really turning upside down. I hardly ever speak to the wife and I feel more secure in the basement with no one to talk to. I don't get along too well at work...it's hard to talk to them; they weren't there!"

"I always have the same dream. There is Smitty with his brains all over the bunker. Why didn't it get me? That round was meant for me. I've drifted from 80 jobs in the last 12 years. They all end the same way. I think of Smitty and I get depressed and drink. I don't come in very regular, and whammo! I'm fired."

These are only two of the thousands of Vietnam vet stories, years after the end of the war in Southeast Asia. These are for forgotten casualties of Vietnam. Two million, seven hundred thousand vets fought in Vietnam at one time or another. It's only a matter of degree as to how—and how much—they were affected by the experience; not all have overcome the contradictions.

We talk about "contradictions" because the reality of the war in Indochina was in complete contradiction to everything we had learned. And it's a contradiction now to have to place that experience within the current social view of reality.

Post traumatic stress disorder (ptsd) is an all-encompassing name given to describe an affliction that affects a portion of the people who served in Vietnam and survived. Post traumatic stress disorder is a major anxiety resulting from external stress beyond experiences which are usual and tolerable.

For many vets the build-up began in basic training. Here the military slowly began its calculated effort to wipe out the soldier's individual dignity and respect for human life. Throughout training the racism of the military became apparent especially in rank structure, and grew blatant during the final preparation for Vietnam. And then the soldier ended up in Vietnam, unfamiliar with the culture, unable to speak the language, cut off from former companions, afraid to relate to the Vietnamese, isolated form his own feelings, and trapped in an absurd situation of survival.

Evolution of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

It wasn't until World War I that specific clinical syndromes came to be associated with combat duty. In earlier wars it was assumed that such casualties were simply manifestations of poor discipline and cowardice. In World War I the term "shell shock" appeared since some thought that the high air pressure of exploding shells caused physiological damage.

During World War II psychological casualties were removed from the battle area and put in hospitals. In the early years of the war the psychiatric casualty rate had risen 300% over World War I. at one point, psychiatric discharges exceeded the total number of men being newly drafted.

The Vietnam war began with low psychiatric evacuation rates, only 12 per thousand. But as the war progressed, a previously obscure but well documented phenomenon of World War II began to reappear: and the end of the Second World War, vets suffering from acute combat reaction as well as some of their peers with no such problems began to complain of common symptoms: intense anxiety, battle dreams, explosive aggressive behavior and problems with personal relations. Just like World War II vets, here were Vietnam veterans who had "no problems" fighting the war but now were suffering from delayed reactions whose symptoms did not get better or go away with the passage of time.

After battles in professional and legal arenas, with a series of experts taking up the fight of vets, the V.A. agreed to a new category of disability: post traumatic stress disorder, acute, chronic, and/or delayed.

There were unique aspects of the Vietnam war that helped to create what would become known as ptsd.

Most of us volunteered—80%—to go to Vietnam. We were simple-minded patriots who OD'd on John Wayne and figured we were fighting to keep the world safe for democracy. The Commies had to be stopped in Vietnam before they were in San Francisco!
Once we were faced with the realities of Vietnam—the Corruption, the lies, the black-market, the South Vietnamese military—we just were not prepared for the let-down. When we returned to the "world" we were forced to look at what we had done. One way to adjust was to not admit the problems and forget the war. But, our problems didn't go away and nobody seemed to care.
Entering Vietnam all fired-up, we were not prepared for the meaninglessness of it all. Huge battles were fought over territory which was then given up, only to be fought over once more. Some officers received medals for flying over a battle while ground troops couldn't get enough C-rations, because someone in the rear was making bucks on the side by selling them. We had been told one thing about the war by our government; the facts of life in Vietnam just did not match up.
And there was the simple fact that the U.S. lost the war, and source of significant stress for some participants. It was the first clear defeat for the U.S. in our national history and for some vets, the defeat has added a major fault in the psychological defensive structure surrounding the war experience.
Throughout the war in Vietnam there was no certainty about exactly who was the enemy, and, because of that, exactly what "atrocities" meant. The first problem encountered in Vietnam, especially for the combat soldier, was the total lack of structure. There was no "front" as in other wars; there was little of the "order of battle" where soldiers act out their role as fighters.
In Marine boot camp we used to have pictures of slant-eyed people over the gun racks. If we used the word "Vietnamese" we were hit and hit hard. "Those are gooks, boy! You better remember it because that kid could have a grenade!" Vietnam was a war of liberation where almost any individual we met could have been giving aid and comfort to the "enemy."

The dehumanizing training, racism and frustration of combat with an unseen enemy helped provide the climate for the U.S. forces to commit atrocities.

In Southeast Asia there were atrocities aimed at the people—things like search and destroy missions, torture, captives tossed out of helicopters, massacres, etc. There was the atrocity aimed at the land: Agent Orange and other defoliants. Witnessing or participating in atrocities left some vets with brutalized sectors of the personality, psychic numbing and guilt.
Vietnam had some combat experiences that made it unique. All war has a profound effect on those who participate; the individual is never quite the same afterwards. But not since 2 years spent fighting the Phillipine guerrillas after the Spanish-American war have American troops have involved in a totally guerrilla war.
The liberation forces in Vietnam were many times elusive and uncatchable; often they had the full support of the people. It didn't take long for GI's to realize that the Vietnamese didn't really want us there at all. The frustration level was high.

In the ground war in Vietnam our standard policy was to try to separate the "fish from the sea." We created a free-fire zone on paper and everyone had to be out in 72 hours, moved into barbed-wire "relocation camps." Then a "search and destroy" mission was mounted, all villages in the area were destroyed and burned along with crops; anyone seen moving in the area was a VC and killed.

The object of this exercise was to get a "body count." Progress of the war was measured in number of enemy killed; promotions and extra R & R were all rewards for a high body count. Because they were so important to military careers, body counts grew as they were passed along the military chain of command: lots of GI's had the experience of seeing two dead enemy soldiers and then reading about 50 killed a couple of weeks later.

All of this was American government policy right up to the highest levels of command. For the individual soldier, the guilt involved in some of our actions was too much once we came back to a society which had used us once and then threw us away.
Our reception at home—or lack of it—was at the bottom of long-term delayed stress problems for many vets. The policy of DEROS (date of expected return from overseas) added to our problems; we were not in for the duration as in some earlier wars: we were there for 12 or 13 months unless we extended, and then were back home, unprogrammed, within 72 hours. The DEROS policy meant, further, that we came home alone.

Tours were solitary episodes and units couldn't build the unity and skill levels of other wars. The "Fucking New Guys" were shunned by "Short-timers" and the Short-timers got rear duty (sometimes) for their last two months; often, they felt guilty about the friends they were leaving behind.

Many lived in the unreal world of counting the calendar to return to "the world," somehow sure that it had not changed. The awakening was rude when we returned home to heavy unemployment, a half-assed GI Bill, and communities that didn't seem to care. Our sacrifices were for nothing and it looked like we were the suckers.

Many vets did not agree with the anti-war movement they found when returning home. The story of the veteran being spit on at the airport was retold and retold, true or not. VVAW played a special role in giving vets a way to relate to their own feelings about the war they had been through. We were America's first veterans to come home during a war to protest; we were against the U.S. government policy in Vietnam and wanted to bring our brothers home.

Even we separated ourselves from the civilian anti-war movement a lot of times. People took out their frustrations over an unpopular war on the returning veterans. TV shows and movies consistently portrayed the Vietnam vet as the drug-crazed baby-burner; never did they look into the nature of U.S. government policy.

How Does Post Traumatic Stress Manifest Itself?

The problems of ptsd can manifest themselves in two basic ways: psychological symptoms and, second, problems in how we relate to life in general and our interpersonal relations.

There are the classical traumatic neuroses symptoms such as flashback, nightmares, rage, spells, anxiety, etc.
Many veterans have a continuing battle with depression and guilt. Our suicide rate is 23% higher than the general population. More Vietnam vets have died since returning stateside as a result of self-destructive behavior than died in combat—53,000. We were trained—or learned by ourselves—to be cold and uncaring and not to get too attached to people. In Vietnam we handled the deaths of our buddies "in the shortest time possible." Some vets feel guilty about having survived; others cannot handle sharing that guilt with non-veterans including wives and families.

Rage: Our rage can be frightening even to ourselves. Frequently we strike out without reason and that includes our wives and children. The rage of a Vietnam veteran stems from the feeling of having been betrayed by our country and by the military; we were forced to participate in an absurd and brutal and corrupt situation. Violence is one outlet for this rage and is the result of a war experience where violence was the quick and absolute solution to any problem, especially where there is confusion or uncertainty about who and where the enemy is.

Avoidance of Feelings; Alienation: The alienation began when we returned to a society that neither understood or card what we had experience in Vietnam.

The evolution of emotional deadness began in boot camp: our enemy was dehumanized and we developed the ability to cut off our own feelings as a defense against the death around us.

Our return to the States, usually within 72 hours after we left the field, gave us no time to talk out our experiences with our peers. We returned alone and sometimes with drug or alcohol problems. We closed ourselves off from our families, our wives and friends.

Vietnam Veterans Against the War began its work around what was then called "Post Vietnam Syndrome" in New York City at the end of 1970. Rap groups were formed to help vets with their problems and to educate them about the true nature of the war. We found that understanding the war shifted the blame and guilt that the vet often piled on himself or herself and directed that guilt at the government and governmental agencies like the military or the V.A. where the guilt properly belonged (and belongs today). It was a period too when a few professionals began to see the problems that vets faced; Drs Robert Lifton and Chaim Shaton were pioneers in educating the public and gathering professionals to help vets.

The V.A. at this time did not recognize any delayed psychiatric reaction to the war as a service-connected disability. Unless the problem surfaced within one year and was in the vet's health records, it did not exist according to the V.A. VVAW demanded service-connected status, education of V.A. staff members to the problems, and the creation of community rap groups for affected vets.

Tragically, it took the death of a Vietnam vet named Dwight in Detroit, in May of 1971 to start things changing. Dwight had earned the Medal of Honor in Vietnam only to die in a grocery store hold up. His story started the pressure building to deal with the unique stress of this war which was, then, still four years from being over.

At present some 33% of those incarcerated in U.S. prisons are Vietnam vets. Not all of these individuals are in for crimes directly linked to ptsd, but how many would not be there if programs existed to deal with the problems of returning veterans?

VVAW has become closely tied to the struggle of vets facing incarceration or already in jail for crimes linked to their experience in Vietnam.

Don Kemp returned from Vietnam in 1967. While a member of the Army's Long Range Reconnaissance Platoon attached to the Rangers, he was ordered to kill civilians, go on bizarre missions and fire on "friendlies" to keep the war going. When he arrived home, he quickly developed heavy, paranoid symptoms: carrying guns, guns in the car and the house—he even slept with a gun under his pillow. He received a small pension and a semblance of medical help from the V.A. In July, 1971, Don't psychiatrist was planning to leave the V.A. and noted that there was improvement in Don's condition; Don was therefore discharged from all V.A. treatment. He went home and, that night, when awakened from one of his terrifying nightmares by his wife, he shot her with the gun he kept to protect himself from the enemy who populated his dreams.

Don received a natural life sentence for first degree murder of his wife and even after a second trial, still sits in Waupun State Prison in Wisconsin.

In June 1971, in a street in Monterey, California, a man was arrested and accused of first-degree murder for beating another man to death with a log. He couldn't make bail, couldn't afford for a lawyer, couldn't testify in his own defense. The public defender didn't even look into his long history of V.S. psychiatric treatment. He only convinced him to plead guilty to second-degree murder. He was sentenced to 5 years to life in prison.

Bill McFarland had enlisted in the Army at the age of 17 because his best friend had been killed in Vietnam. He worked with scout dogs, saw heavy combat and was sent home severely wounded in both legs, one arm, and his head.

Back home at the age of 19 Bill was in and out of jail and the V.A. and nowhere could he get treatment. A year after sentencing he was given sodium pentathol; he remembered that the man he killed had pulled a gun: it was self-defense, survival like that practiced in Vietnams.

From 1973-75, VVAW, Penthouse, a number of independent vets worked and wrote letters to say that Bill should be released. Finally that happened, but how many 10's of thousands of Vietnam vets will never make it outside again. When they were sentenced, delayed stress was not a defense and treatment was nowhere available.

On August 2, 1980, Jearl Wood, a Black Vietnam vet feeling the pressure of job harassment and a genuine case of post traumatic stress, turned on his foreman at the Ford Torrence plant just south of Chicago and shot him. Nearly two years later, a jury in a Cook county court found Jearl Wood not guilty by reason of insanity.

The case started slowly with an opportunist lawyer eating up most of the money. A new lawyer wisely restructured the defense on a foundation of post-traumatic stress disorder. A defense committee of Jearl's fellow workers, union officials, a spectrum of political groups, clergymen, and VVAW closely coordinated a campaign to reverse public opinion, educate people and show support for the case. With the help of Drs John Wilson and Charles Figley, an unprecedented verdict was reached: ten years ago it would have been impossible to find Jearl not guilty, but finally the original demand of VVAW for recognition of delayed stress is a reality. Today it is a service-connected disability and a valid court defense.

None of this slow progress in the last decade has been accomplished without dragging the V.A. hospital system along, kicking and screaming all the way. Not all V.A. doctors and administrators stood behind this, but there was a clear policy that refused to acknowledge that a stress problem ever existed.

For years the V.A. only locked up vets in hospitals, pumped us full of drugs and told us to forget about the war: that wasn't the problem. Throughout the early 1970's, the only groups that existed to help vets with post traumatic stress problems were VVAW and our rap groups, and independent vet centers like the "Flower of the Dragon" in San Francisco. Simply, it was a case of vets helping vets because they are brothers in trouble.

Pressure on the V.A. and the government by VVAW, the DAV and others helped to break the V.A.'s typical determination to do nothing. Professionals worked to change the V.A. manual to recognize delayed stress as a reality so it could be used in court defense and in V.A. disability cases. All this took until late 1979-early 1980.

What to do???

If you know that you have some problems adjusting to your experiences in Vietnam, first, remember that you are not alone. V.A. statistics say that 20-33% of all Vietnam vets are in need of direct psychiatric aid. This does not mean you are crazy—if you felt nothing from that insane episode in our lives 10,000 miles from home you would really be in trouble.

Got to your nearest Vets Center, your VVAW Chapter, the DAV Forgotten Warrior Project or other independent vet rap group in your community. Get involved in the vets movement in your area.

The first thing the V.A. will look for before awarding a disability is stress-producing incidents in Vietnam:

Firing your weapon at the enemy and killing him or her.
Seeing our own dead or wounded, or finding yourself in a situation where you though you wouldn't survive.

Then the V.A. will ask question about your recollections or dreams or nightmares, your feelings of guilt or nervousness or problems with interpersonal relationships.

The first shrink you see has the power of recommendation for your eligibility for a disability. If he turns you down you can take your problem to the V.A.'s Adjudication section, but that's not easy.

Under the manual used to determine eligibility for ptsd, these are the requirements:

You must have a neurosis problem (not limited to having made death threats).
You must have additional problems which may include:

Flashbacks or dreams.
Emotional withdrawal from everyday problems.
Hypertension or exaggerated response to sudden noises.
Other related problems such as sleep disorder, memory impairment, survivor guilt feelings, lack of concentration on normal subjects, reluctance to relive combat experiences through discussions, movies, etc, and a numbness to normal activities or emotional responses.

That your condition began to show up within a year after the experience that triggered it.

Finally, veterans should get involved—we cannot afford to blame ourselves. VVAW rap groups have always worked on the premise that understanding the true nature of the war and its contradictions allows the vet to turn the guilt, the rage and frustration away from him or herself and channel that energy into something constructive. Get involved with the veterans' movement in your area and help out—not just for yourself but for the many vets who cannot help themselves. There were plenty of casualties in Vietnam, plenty more since we came home, and plenty who aren't yet on the casualty roll. None of them can we afford to forget. And building the fight for decent benefits for all vets (regardless of discharge) and no more Vietnams is the best memorial they—or we—can have.

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