PTSD FINAL BATTLE OF WAR

The final battle of war is not fought with guns or helicopters or jets flying through the air. It is not fought with a uniform specifying branch of service. It is being fought in homes across America, on the streets by the homeless and in the hospitals. It is being fought by veterans of war.

We tally the dead on a daily basis from Iraq and Afghanistan. We try to track those who die back on our land from wounds they received serving overseas. Yet we never really know the true price paid because it can be paid in silent suffering, in families not knowing how to save them and in the eyes of those who try to serve them at the hospitals, clinics and shelters.

After Vietnam, the number of dead was counted and their names engraved on the black stone of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington DC, yet if the truthful accounting had been attempted, a couple of hundred thousand names would have to be added to it. By 1986 117,000 Vietnam veterans had committed suicide. They are still committing suicide. They are still dying from Agent Orange exposure as well. Other studies place the number of Vietnam veterans committing suicide between 150,000 and 200,000, but even these numbers experts agree could be lower than reality. Considering most of America has yet to come to terms with the price paid, they do not link the death of a veteran with service in war. Too often we think, "well it was just one year and so long ago" but we fail to see while they left war, the war did not leave them.

Today we see it all being repeated in the eyes of the veterans of today. Over thirty years later, we still have not gotten it right for their sake.

The song I chose for this is American Anthem by Norah Jones from Ken Burns The War. It says, "America I gave my best to you" and we need to ask ourselves if they deserve the same from us. Can we look them in the eye and tell them we gave our best to them when we let them suffer? When we let the stigma of stupid people stand in the way of them getting the help they need to heal? When we still have mothers burying their sons and daughters because the events of war cut them so deeply they could not heal on their own? Can we really? Have we even tried to come close to being able to do it?

We need to get this right for their sake. For all the generations who came before them and also paid the price with the wound inside of them. Each generation of warrior had the same wounds of war since the beginning of time. We owe it to all of them.

The new video is over on the side bar.