What new veterans need to know about old veterans

Alcohol Abuse Rampant Amongst Returning Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans
This week I’ve been seeing a lot of reporting on substance abuse and service members. This is not at all surprising following the highly publicized death of Joseph Dwyer coupled with new studies and a few revelations about Veterans health care in general.

Alarm bells were already sounding last spring when Newsweek investigated a rash of overdoses. These are of course the most extreme examples of war veterans turning to substance dependency for relief. However there is now a far greater and more common problem that is coming to light, alcohol abuse amongst veterans.
As a veteran who has been a member of various veteran’s organizations for several years now (meaning as soon as I was eligible and stateside) I can say that I have seen this first hand. Drinking is a strong institution in most veteran’s organizations. Every VFW and American Legion Post I can think of has a well stocked bar. This is of course the way that most of these organizations gain their operating funds, and has been since they were founded. I’m not blaming these organizations for “enabling” because many veterans (including myself) want to drink, the problem is a few amongst us that are driven to, and feel a need to drink. The real problem here is a lack of resources and education available to returning veterans.

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My comment

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Kathie Costos Says:
August 17th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
You are correct, however missing the big picture. New veterans are a lot better off than the ones who began the DAV, VFW, American Legion, Vietnam Veterans, and so on. They came back and had nothing but alcohol and whatever else they could find to self-medicate. They didn’t have veteran’s centers or counseling for PTSD. The only thing they had was courage to fight the government to make sure they were taken care of and all those who would come after them. The media didn’t care and frankly, they still don’t about the older veterans.

They came home suffering the same as the new veterans do and their families suffered, but no one knew about it. By 1986, Vietnam claimed another 117,000 lives because of suicide alone and this does not include the ones no one knew about because so many were abandoned by their families, ended up homeless, endured being called “crazy Nam vet” avoided because they were “just another drunk” or “just another druggie” when they were wounded inside. These men and women fought all these years so that their wounds would be taken care of and all the accomplishments and advancements happened because of them. Sure there is a lot more, too much work to be done, but because of them, the new veteran stand a lot better chance of not only surviving but healing as well.

By the way, I’m married to a Vietnam vet with PTSD. I’ve been doing outreach work for over 25 years now and I can testify that as hard as people fight for the Vietnam veterans, we are fighting just as hard for all the new ones.

I just wanted you to be aware that as bad as it is for the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, it would be a lot worse without them.

I could have said a lot more like the alarm bells were being sounded all across the country before both occupations began but no one listened.