Vietnam’s Damage, Four Decades Later

This is one of the best articles I've read on Vietnam veterans. The only problem I had with it was the amount of money 100% veterans receive. It is not $3,000.

$2,673 For a veteran alone.
http://www.vba.va.gov/BLN/21/rates/comp01.htm

This does not factor in the fact that the VA does not cover all treatment for our veterans unless it is connected to their service. A PTSD veteran is only covered for PTSD mental health, free of charge and that includes medication. For most veterans they have to carry other insurance as well for anything else they receive that is not connected to their claim. They have to provide Medicare/Medicaid insurance information along with any other coverage. We have to carry private insurance and the VA bills them for anything other than what is connected to my husband's disability. Veterans have to meet a "Means test" to show if they have the means to pay for their services if they do not have an approved claim.

There is a misperception that the VA covers everything, when they do not. If you do not have an approved claim and a high enough rating for free care of that medical care, you pay or your insurance does. In other words, if it isn't approved by the VA and part of a veterans service, it isn't free.

All this nonsense in the emails and all over the web about billing insurance companies for veterans care never takes into consideration, it's already being done and done the wrong way. This has been going on for years.

The rest of this article is exactly why I do what I do. I ran into so many in denial and they are hard as nails. It's a battle to get them to go for help because they think they are supposed to be tough enough to just get over it. They know something is "wrong" with them. They are not idiots but after being trained to do what they do in combat, you can't take that out of them, no matter how hard you try. They have to understand it on their own and sometimes it takes years to get them to even think of going to the VA.

My husband is one of them. He came home in 1971. We met in 1982 and the first thing my father said when he met him was "That guy has shell shock." That's what they called it back then. Since it came from my Dad, a Korean War vet, I took it to heart. I started to help veterans like my husband at the same time he wouldn't listen to me. It took until 1990 to get him to a psychiatrist when he finally heard the words "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder" from someone he believed. It took another three years to get him to go to the Veterans Center and then more months to get him to go to the VA. 22 years from Vietnam to the VA.

He spent all those years thinking that he would "get over it" and suffering. He thought like his father did. "The VA is for guys missing legs and arms, not for guys with nightmares." The ones with the real mental health problems were locked up in the "looney bin" and would never come out. One of my husband's uncles was such a case. He was in WWII and ended up living on a farm for the rest of his life so that he could be taken care of with some other veterans. Veterans like my husband, well, they thought they didn't need anyone or anything and they would just "suck it up" like all the generations before them.

That was the problem back then but even though we've come so far getting the word out that PTSD is nothing to be ashamed of and raising the awareness of this invisible wound trying to kill them, they are still having a hard time coming to terms with it and even a harder time sucking up their foolish pride to get the help they need to live lives instead of just existing in them.

Ross Taylor for The New York Times
A LIFE-SHAPING EXPERIENCE Philip Van Cott reflected in a picture from his Vietnam days, with his Purple Heart medal.

Vietnam’s Damage, Four Decades Later

By MICHAEL WINERIP
Published: September 4, 2009
SPRINGFIELD, Mass.

ON Aug. 26, 1966, Philip Van Cott’s Marine unit was ambushed in the jungles of Vietnam, a trip wire went off, a bomb exploded and shrapnel pierced a hole in his right hand. Mr. Van Cott, whose squad was in constant firefights during his five months in the jungle, was helicoptered to safety. He spent seven months in Japanese and American hospitals as the wound healed, completed his two-year tour in the States, then was honorably discharged.

In the years since, he has been married to the same woman, Karen, for nearly four decades, had two sons and a grandson, held several jobs, bought a home, owned a restaurant, spent 20 years with the post office and in 2006 at age 60, retired.

Nowadays, he paints in his studio several times a week, swims and lifts weights, attends 7:30 Mass on Sunday mornings, and travels with his wife. Every other Thursday, for the last 10 years, he has driven to the Veterans Administration Vet Center here where he gets therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder in connection with his Vietnam combat service.

He first went for help after threatening a supervisor at the post office, and nearly losing his job. “I had rages, and I was getting worse,” he said. “I was constantly embarrassing my family, screaming and hollering at people.”

He got into fistfights at Little League and high school football games. At night, asleep, he’d have nightmares, break into cold sweats, scream and flail at his wife. “It’s been going on so long, now she hears me wind up and wakes me before I do it,” he said.

When a V.A. psychiatrist diagnosed the disorder, Mr. Van Cott did not believe it — Vietnam was so long ago. They had him join a therapy group for Vietnam veterans. “I figured these guys were doing it to collect a disability check,” he said. “It took two to three years before I started realizing what I was doing was crazy.”

He now takes medications for anxiety and depression. And in therapy, he works on anger control. His wife thinks it’s helped, but he’s not sure. “I don’t know if you can escape what you are,” he said. In mid-August, he stormed out of a session at the Vet Center because he was sure his therapist was snubbing him. “He was late for our appointment, then walked by three times without saying anything,” Mr. Van Cott said.

While studies estimate as many as 20 percent of those now returning from Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from P.T.S.D., it is veterans like Mr. Van Cott, from a war nearly a half-century ago, who still dominate the administration’s P.T.S.D. caseload. In 2008, of the 442,695 people seen at veterans hospitals for P.T.S.D., 59.2 percent were Vietnam-era veterans, while 21.5 percent served in the Iraq, Afghanistan or Gulf wars.
go here to read more
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/fashion/06generationb.html?_r=1