Invisible Wounds
On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918, under an arranged armistice, fighting ceased in Europe between the Allied nations and Germany. This end of hostilities was regarded as “the war to end all wars.”
In 1919, President Wilson proclaimed November 11th as the first Armistice Day. In 1938 this date became a legal holiday by act of Congress, set aside to honor veterans of WWI. In 1954 Congress amended the Act by striking out the word “ Armistice” and inserting in it's place the word “Veterans” to honor veterans of all wars. This Veterans Day I'd like you to give thought to a problem many of our vets continue to struggle with: The invisible wounds of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
PTSD is not a new phenomenon, only the medical terms have changed over time. During the Civil war many vets returned home with symptoms of “soldier's heart”. In 1918 a new medical term had emerged to describe “shell shock” where some psychiatric symptoms were overt but many invisible wounds remained undetected and few were treated. During and after WWII, the term “battle fatigue” appeared in the medical journals but it wasn't until after the Vietnam War that the term PTSD appeared in the1980 edition of the Diagnostic and Statistics Manual. The doctors who lobbied for it's inclusion viewed it as a means of finally legitimizing the pain and suffering of all veterans.
Today we are doing an excellent job as a nation in recognizing the past service of our veterans, especially our physically wounded warriors but many of us have a long way to go in recognizing the symptoms of the invisible wounds. It is not for lack of compassion but rather lack of knowledge in connecting the symptoms to the ailment.
More than a dozen symptoms are listed on the web site: “PTSDSymptoms and treatments.” If you have a friend or family member whose behavior has negatively changed since returning from military duty in Iraq or Afghanistan, do your best to direct the vet toward professional assistance. We should also be more tolerant of the anti social behavior of the veteran once we've been made aware of the potential cause.
The problem is further complicated by a Veterans Administration infested with career civilian administrators more interested in cooking the books to gain bonuses than diligently serving the veteran. My solution to this problem is to petition your elected officials to create a special category of choice outside of the VA system for veterans' medical assistance. “ If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor” should not be another political slogan for the veteran who has already paid a steep price for all of us.