Veteran reaches out so others' suffering isn't done in silence

Vietnam veteran, and Vietnam War combat journalist, Don Lonsway displays a photograph he took of a soldier marching through a South Vietnam jungle with a mortar tube, left, and a photograph of him in a helocopter playing Santa Claus delivering candy to Vietnamese children as a part of a U.S. military public relations event. Scott Yates photo.

Scott Yates/syates@seacoastonlin

War's toll: Vietnam veteran helps others suffering post-traumatic stress
Veteran reaches out so others' suffering isn't done in silence
By Deborah McDermott
dmcdermott@seacoastonline.com
May 18, 2008 6:00 AM
ELIOT, Maine — For more than 30 years, Don Lonsway thought he was crazy.

He'd be driving, for instance, when without warning he'd have a panic attack, start sweating profusely, and feel his heart race. Mornings, he'd wake up from a nightmare-filled sleep to sheets like a "rat's nest" and soaked through. He'd go home many nights with a half-gallon of cheap whiskey and drink it until he passed out.


An educated man, a successful high school guidance counselor, Lonsway said doctors told him over the years that nothing was wrong with him.

But it wasn't until after the death of his mother in 2001 when the puzzle pieces started falling into place. Despondent, not seeing much the reason for living, he confided in a physician's assistant he was contemplating suicide.

She listened to his symptoms and then told him that, in fact, he was not crazy. He was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder brought about by one single year of Army service when he was 26 years old.

PTSD is an age-old disorder that has been around as long as wars have been fought. Called by different names in different wars — "shell shock" in World War I or "combat neurosis" in World War II — PTSD was recognized by the American Psychiatric Association in 1980 as an official diagnosis after tens of thousands of Vietnam War veterans were found to be suffering from it.

Much attention and press was given to PTSD during the 1980s, and many veterans received treatment as a result.

Lonsway, now 66, was not among them.

"I really hadn't heard much about it," he said. "Maybe I knew about it, but I never related it to me."
click post title for more