Talking About War Helped WWII Veteran Come To Terms

Keep in mind that when WWII veterans came home, they didn't talk about PTSD but others knew they were living with "shell shock."

If you want an eye opener on war from Providing For the Casualties of War The American Experience Through World War II

And The Army Nurse Corps in World War II

Visit to WWII Museum in New Orleans an eye-opener
Watertown Daily Times
By JILL SCHENSUL
RECORD (HACKENSACK, N.J.)
PUBLISHED: SATURDAY, MARCH 14, 2015

In the darkness of the theater, the numbers appear. They come at you, really, daring you to absorb them:

Soviet Union, 24,000,000

China, 20,000,000

Poland, 5,600,000

Japan, 3,100,000

U.S.A., 518,000

Germany, 8,800,000

These are the number of dead, by country, in World War II. A total of 65 million, more than all other wars to that point combined.

Another exhibit gives visitors a sobering taste of submarine warfare with the interactive “Final Mission: The USS Tang Experience.”

And “Beyond All Boundaries,” the much-praised film that is a centerpiece of the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, slaps you into awareness. Awareness of a reality that, as the “Greatest Generation” veterans slip away, we are in danger of forgetting.

The movie, narrated by Tom Hanks, its executive producer, is in “4-D.” The 3-D is accomplished without needing those special glasses, and the fourth D reaches into the audience — wind blows, the theater’s seats shake, smoke billows. The movie, like the museum, wants to engage all generations; that’s why you need that extra “D” these days.

MEETING THE MEN WHO FOUGHT
Right next to the Higgins display was a long metal table, and near the far end sat two men, one sporting military medals, the other with a gray, unruly beard. Behind the man with the medals was a sign: “I was there! Meet Forrest Villarrubia, USMC, WWII veteran. Pacific Theater.”

Both men were veterans, willing to answer questions, or welcome other veterans, to the museum. On the table beside them was a photo of a man who had just died. I asked them about Thomas Blakey.

Blakey was an Army paratrooper who landed behind enemy lines early on D-Day to capture and hold a bridge to keep Germans from sending reinforcements to Utah Beach.

He was 94 when he died, Villarrubia said. He had logged 15,000 hours as a volunteer at the museum.

They didn’t tell me that Blakey had been one of the legions of veterans who had suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. It was something you didn’t talk about at the time.

Blakey was haunted by what he saw behind enemy lines and was only finally able to drive away the ghosts when he became a volunteer.

Sharing his stories. Talking about the war, in all its aspects, helped him come to terms with the past.
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