Vietnam veterans retirement brings out PTSD symptoms

This is very true and important, not just for Vietnam veterans but for this generation of veterans. When they do not heal what may be mild PTSD now, it gets worse later when they do not have other things to push in front of the pain. It hits them like a sledgehammer!

For retiring Vietnam veterans, a resurgence of PTSD symptoms
Filed by KOSU News in Public Insight Network.
February 23, 2013
Our reporting on veterans’ issues has focused almost exclusively on Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. It is not to minimize the ongoing struggles of Vietnam veterans. In fact, we often look to the research on Vietnam veterans for some understanding of what might lie ahead for the younger veterans we’re meeting.

So my interest was piqued when I stumbled across a story, now several months old, about Vietnam veterans experiencing a recurrence of PTSD symptoms … in retirement.

In “Retirement might unleash PTSD symptoms in Vietnam veterans,” an article published by Stars and Stripes in June 2012, Leo Shane III talks to veteran Sam Luna, who retired in 2004.

From the article:
“‘I didn’t realize anything was wrong,’ the combat-wounded Vietnam veteran said. ‘I thought I had adjusted well after I came back. I had a job, I had a family, everything looked great from the outside.’

“But shortly after he retired in 2004, his anxiety attacks and stress levels increased. A trip to his local Veterans Affairs hospital triggered war memories. The former soldier started to notice the hair-trigger temper his wife had complained about for years.

“He found himself thinking more often about the war — and the friends he lost.”
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