Monday is Memorial Day. The day we honor the men and women who sacrificed their lives for this nation, what this nation asked them to do. Some went willingly, some were drafted, but when they stood side by side, all of them were in it for each other. They were their "brother's keeper" watching out for their friends. Some sacrificed their lives in order to save the life of someone else. We honor them because they gave their lives but we do not honor all of them.
After Vietnam, there were an additional 200,000, by the last attempt to count them, who died as a result of their wounds. These men an women suffered a horrible death and they suffered in silence. Everything they were slipped away. All their hopes and dreams faded, replaced by vengeful ghosts. The sights, sounds and smells they were surrounded by in combat, refused to die the day they faced death eye to eye. The battle they waged, was not fought with their brothers by their side. They were fought alone, too afraid to speak. Too stunned to scream for help. Too drained to fight to stay alive.
We speak of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder today, but when they came home, no one would discuss it in anything above whispering "There is something wrong with him." They became someone to stay away from instead of someone to reach out to. Had they been wounded by a visible wound, they would have received compassion and pity, but this wound could not be seen by a stranger. It was seen by those who loved the stranger who returned home in place of the man who left.
These men and women received no honor of a medal for the wound they would carry for the rest of their lives. A wound so deeply imbedded within them that they could not heal on their own and did not know where to go for help. Their bodies paid the price with illnesses caused by the constant stress of endless nights dreaming of death and destruction vividly resurrected. The days of flashbacks arising without warning. Their hearts suffered from the constant adrenaline rush. Their digestive system began to break down. Nerves jumped out of control. Muscles weakened. Livers were damaged by the self medication of choice, alcohol, so they could kill off the feelings they could no longer fight. Yet this wound was not done with the wounded. It sought to inflict the entire family. Families of these men and women also suffered from the constant trauma of daily living with them. The stress took such a strong hold that wives and children were constantly on edge. Without help, they wanted to get rid of the problem, the stranger in their home they could not control and could not depend on.
Thirty years ago, there was an excuse to not know what PTSD was. There is no excuse today. There is too much information, too many research documents, too many experts, to be able to dismiss or diminish this devastating wound.
When you go to the monuments for the war dead, understand that there are ghosts within the lines between the names. Men and women who died because of service to this nation, wounded by their service and died a lonely death by taking their own lives unable to fight off the enemy any longer.
There is a serious question being discussed all over the nation. The awarding of the Purple Heart for this wound. Arguments arise because some cannot see it as a wound, yet when you discover the word trauma means wound in Greek, there is no question what the cause was. Some want to see PTSD as a wound of a lesser degree of worthiness, when they can never be cured of this, when the scar cuts so deeply they will never be free of it, but can only be helped to live with it. Bullet wounds, can be sewn up, but PTSD can not be so easily treated. PTSD if anything, is a wound to a greater degree. A Purple Heart for the loss of a limb, is the same medal they award for a bullet wound, yet no one will diminish a tiny scar left behind when the bullet is removed. Yet with PTSD they diminish the scar that penetrated all the muscles, all the parts of the body and every part of the wounded's life.
The wounded by PTSD who could no longer fight, took their own lives because of the battles they were sent to fight in Vietnam, in Kuwait, in Korea, in the nations of WWII and WWI and all the way back to the beginning of this nation. Those who carry it within them are still regarded as "there is something wrong with them" instead of finally understanding there is something wrong with all of us that the wounded are not treated as wounded, but left to fight their own battles here at home. It's time we got this right for the sake of the living or next Memorial Day, there will be too many more who will also go unnoticed among the sea of headstones at your local cemetery. We need to ask how many of the over 1,000 a month trying to end their lives because of PTSD are worthy of the grave? Were those who ended their lives any less worthy of the honor we give to others on Monday? Do you really want to add more than the enemy did during combat?
Senior Chaplain Kathie Costos
International Fellowship of Chaplains
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation." - George Washington
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