“Wars damage the civilian society as much as they damage the enemy. Soldiers never get over it.”
~ Paul Fussell
We all have two people inside of us, one that is who we are and one that is who we can be. But what if who we can be gets interrupted, by the call to arms of war or any kind of trauma leaving a long lasting and undetected silent imprint on our souls?
The attached photos show my father both before and after battle in WWII as a 101st Airborne paratrooper with the Five-O-Deuce. The pictures are very telling and reveal the scars of war in the facial features. He said once, “we all have our cross to bear.”
Soldiers of yesterday, today and the future share a common thread of post traumatic stress disorder; one that I never realized touched me, my children or my siblings, not until after I published my fathers wartime letters from WWII as a 101st Airborne paratrooper in Comes A Soldier’s Whisper.
My father carried sadness and boxed up memories from the war. I always believed that much of that sadness and anger was carried over from losing his mother, father and sister at young ages. But it was so much more than that, as he did suffer from PTSD, with a quick trigger temper, intolerance to loud noises, moaning in his sleep and crying out at night. I don’t remember questioning that and thought all fathers moaned and cried out in their sleep. I never questioned any of it and walked on eggshells while growing up. My siblings and I, while absorbing this behavior like sponges as children even took on some of this behavior.
I have known 3 people during my life who suffered from PTSD, my father from WWII, my ex-husband from Vietnam and my brother from the Gulf. I have often questioned why I was surrounded by angry men in my life with tempers flared, sadness and the like. Why even my children have expressed anger over the years, children of a Vietnam veteran who did not realize that he was suffering from the past. In looking back, I believe now that my ex-husband’s PTSD was lying dormant, silently waiting for another traumatic episode before rising to the surface to strike.
Traumatic events did occur with the loss of beloved parents, jobs, illness which triggered memories from his past. My brother who did two tours in The Gulf suffered extreme depression and weight gain. Our family did not understand what was happening and wrote it off to the loss of our father in 1999. Our brother never got over his death. I finally began to encourage my brother to go to the VA and seek counseling. He did but it was too late. He gave up and succumbed with his death and passing in 2009.
My children’s father, a Vietnam veteran did not seek help until 2007, after two of his comrades committed suicide. This was twenty years after our divorce and 37 years after he served in Vietnam. Could it be that my son and daughter were affected by their father’s PTSD?
Was I as a spouse and caregiver by association taking on my husband’s depression and feelings of isolation? The answer is “yes.” It is called secondary PTSD and is prevalent among families today and without recognition and treatment. It can run havoc and divide families, as it did mine…
We need to open our hearts and minds to our returning soldiers and help them to transition back home again for the benefit of the soldier, his family and society as a whole.
God Bless and Support Our Troops!
A Proud Airborne Daughter,
Jenny Tharp La Sala
For More On This Topic Visit the following link and CONTACT your local Veteran Center: Secondary PTSD militaryfamily.com/2012/03/20/secondary-ptsd/ …
Also WATCH Jim Markson’s compelling interview concerning this subject on the Support Our Troops page of www.ComesASoldiersWhisper.com
WWII LETTERS: www.ComesASoldiersWhisper.com
VIETNAM LETTERS: www.VietnamAndBeyond.com
