Have you ever had a loved one serve in Iraq or Afghanistan? If so, then you are likely all too familiar with the devastating effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). This mental health condition, which is caused by exposure to traumatic events, can have long-lasting effects on those who experience it. For military personnel who have served multiple tours in a combat zone, the risk of developing PTSD is even greater.
As a former military member, I received a briefing on PTSD before retiring. The speaker highlighted a study conducted on U.S. World War II veterans, which found that exposure to high-stress combat environments for just one year led to permanent visible changes in the brain. This led to troops being withdrawn from Vietnam after just one year, but unfortunately, the lesson seems to have been forgotten, as our service men and women were sent back to Iraq and Afghanistan multiple times, some even on their fifth 15-month tour.
The effects of PTSD are not limited to just American soldiers. German soldiers returning from war also suffered from physical and psychological wounds. Many of those who survived Russian gulags returned in even worse shape, as was the case with my own grandfather. When he returned home in 1947, he was unrecognizable to his family. His once jet black hair was now all white stubble, and he had lost most of his teeth. He was skeletal and had a haunted look in his eyes. According to my mother, he was lucky to have survived at all, but he returned an empty husk.
My mother recounts his return home in vivid detail. For the first week, he hardly spoke and spent hours sitting alone in a chair, tormented by things he kept hidden from his family. Even when they went out shopping, he was constantly looking over his shoulder, paranoid about when and where the next attack would come.
Days later, he revealed to them that he had turned himself over to the Americans at the end of the war. The Americans later turned all German POWs over to the Russians. He was then shipped to a prison camp in Siberia, where he struggled to survive for two years in the freezing cold with barely anything to eat. He shared only one story from his time in the prison camp - when a prisoner was caught stealing a piece of bread, his fellow prisoners held him upside down in a barrel they used to relieve themselves. The man suffocated as he was drowned in feces and urine.
Tragically, my grandfather died two years later from tuberculosis that he had contracted while in prison. My grandmother never remarried, and her life was forever changed by the trauma her husband had experienced.
The story of my grandfather's struggle is just one of many, and it serves as a reminder that the effects of war go far beyond the battlefield. We must continue to support our veterans and work to prevent the cycles of trauma brought on by war that can perpetuate from generation to generation.
As a former military member, I received a briefing on PTSD before retiring. The speaker highlighted a study conducted on U.S. World War II veterans, which found that exposure to high-stress combat environments for just one year led to permanent visible changes in the brain. This led to troops being withdrawn from Vietnam after just one year, but unfortunately, the lesson seems to have been forgotten, as our service men and women were sent back to Iraq and Afghanistan multiple times, some even on their fifth 15-month tour.
The effects of PTSD are not limited to just American soldiers. German soldiers returning from war also suffered from physical and psychological wounds. Many of those who survived Russian gulags returned in even worse shape, as was the case with my own grandfather. When he returned home in 1947, he was unrecognizable to his family. His once jet black hair was now all white stubble, and he had lost most of his teeth. He was skeletal and had a haunted look in his eyes. According to my mother, he was lucky to have survived at all, but he returned an empty husk.
My mother recounts his return home in vivid detail. For the first week, he hardly spoke and spent hours sitting alone in a chair, tormented by things he kept hidden from his family. Even when they went out shopping, he was constantly looking over his shoulder, paranoid about when and where the next attack would come.
Days later, he revealed to them that he had turned himself over to the Americans at the end of the war. The Americans later turned all German POWs over to the Russians. He was then shipped to a prison camp in Siberia, where he struggled to survive for two years in the freezing cold with barely anything to eat. He shared only one story from his time in the prison camp - when a prisoner was caught stealing a piece of bread, his fellow prisoners held him upside down in a barrel they used to relieve themselves. The man suffocated as he was drowned in feces and urine.
Tragically, my grandfather died two years later from tuberculosis that he had contracted while in prison. My grandmother never remarried, and her life was forever changed by the trauma her husband had experienced.
The story of my grandfather's struggle is just one of many, and it serves as a reminder that the effects of war go far beyond the battlefield. We must continue to support our veterans and work to prevent the cycles of trauma brought on by war that can perpetuate from generation to generation.