By CINDY UKEN
Posted: Sunday, March 4, 2012
Soldiers returning to Montana from Iraq and Afghanistan will also be forced to go out of state for treatment. The Veterans Administration has treated more than 210,000 veterans of those wars for PTSD, but says much of it goes unreported. Part of Knudson's concern is that some veterans won't get the treatment they need because they won't want to leave Montana, their homes and their families.
Haunting images of children playing among the skulls of beheaded Viet Cong, bloody airborne human limbs and the shattered torso of a decapitated sergeant shot in the back by a rocket-propelled grenade are the fuel for David Knudson's ongoing mental health issues.
He pauses and speaks in measured tones when recounting the experiences seared into his memory from his 13 months of combat in Vietnam beginning in 1969.
He observed Viet Cong hanging on meat hooks and witnessed Americans cutting off the ears of Viet Cong, sewing them together and hanging them off their belt like trophies. He killed men during firefights. There's more he won't talk about.
"Sometimes you can even smell it," said the Billings veteran.
He spent three months in Cambodia but only remembers the first three weeks. The rest, he said, is "erased."
He was emotionally and mentally wounded, but did not know how to articulate it.
The 61-year-old veteran, like so many former soldiers, suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. He was ashamed, even afraid to admit it because it wasn't considered manly. Moreover, he didn't think there was help for it.
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