Wall Street Journal PTSD Report on Vietnam Veterans Mostly Wrong

Vets Seek Help for PTSD Decades After War
Hundreds of Thousands of Aging Vietnam Veterans Receive Treatment
Wall Street Journal
Clare Ansberry
November 28, 2014

SANDISFIELD, Mass.—Nightmares of a friend dying beside him in a bunker years ago now waken Donald Vitkus.

“There is stuff that you carry from the war,” the 71-year-old Vietnam veteran said.

Mr. Vitkus spends his days in and out of therapy at a residential rehabilitation center filled with mostly older veterans, working on his memory while trying to gain control over disturbing recollections and the emotions they surface.

He is one of hundreds of thousands of aging Vietnam veterans who late in life are now seeking help for post-traumatic stress disorder—a mix of flashbacks, depression and sleeplessness springing from a war that ended four decades ago.

More than 530,000 veterans received treatment for PTSD from VA hospitals and clinics through March of this year, nearly double the total through 2006, according to the Veterans Administration. Iraq and Afghanistan veterans make up a large portion of the increase but account for slightly more than a quarter of PTSD patients; the rest served in earlier wars, mainly Vietnam.

Many of those Vietnam veterans threw themselves into family and work after the war, keeping busy to avoid thinking about what happened. Now, in their 60s and 70s, they have retired, their children grown, living without the distraction of workaday life. Some no longer have confidants—spouses, friends or siblings.
read more here

Now for something they got wrong among other things.

"PTSD wasn’t identified as a medical disorder until 1980, after the emotional troubles of Vietnam veterans became too overwhelming to dismiss."

The VA didn't compensate for PTSD until the 80's but it was already being used by the mental health community and veterans centers. Vietnam veterans pushed for the research and treatment as well as compensation to take care of all generations of veterans.

The title of the report this came from was this

It hangs on the wall right over my desk so I never forget how long we've been talking about PTSD.

Some experts question the reported rise in PTSD cases. Christopher Frueh, a University of Hawaii psychologist and former clinician and director of a VA PTSD clinic, said the VA has relaxed criteria in determining PTSD—for example, not requiring documentation of exposure to a traumatic event—making it easier for veterans to misrepresent their combat experience.

The article seems to want to send a message supporting an agenda instead of facts. In 2007 El Paso Times had this report about Vietnam Veterans seeking help for PTSD.

In the past 18 months, 148,000 Vietnam veterans have gone to VA centers reporting symptoms of PTSD "30 years after the war," said Brig. Gen. Michael S. Tucker, deputy commanding general of the North Atlantic Regional Medical Command and Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He recently visited El Paso.

That was long before the rules were changed to make it easier for Vietnam veterans to refile claims that had been turned down. Long before research, real research showed that Vietnam veterans were the majority of the homeless as well as the majority of the suicides connected to military service.

In the article them seem to be trying yet again to blame the veteran for not being, well, strong enough to deal with combat on one hand and on the other, being greedy taking advantage of the rule changes. With reporters like this, we have a view of what it will look like 30 or 40 years from now since they forgot what really happened.

Every generation came home with what we call PTSD. My Dad's generation still called it "shell shock" but they all knew what it was. They knew the price being paid by body and mind. Wounds that would never really heal.

My husband's Dad and uncles were of the WWII generation. One of them had "shell shock" and was given a choice. Go into an institution or go live on a farm with other veterans. He picked the farm.

Between WWI and WWII, psychiatric evacuations went up 300%. They tried something different during Kora and brought them down to 3% because they had clinicians pull soldiers out of combat, treat them and get them able to go back to duty.

With Vietnam they tried something else. 12 month deployments so that they were already back home and out of the military before they started to show signs they needed help. Marines did 13 months.

Now you know the rest of the story.