It might be better to stay on point. Why do soldiers think that their war is "The most important part of my life already happened". That seems silly to me when there is so much more in this world to accomplish. I don't see that poor attitude in other Veterans.

bacase after you to somthing that intense and that meaning full nothing compares

oh and he not a soldier he marine i was in the army and i think the marines wood agree with this marines and soldiers are two dif things

JB, what hubris! How dare you judge this man? Were you in Iraq? Have you ever been in the place of any of our service personnel? Do you think people are all alike? Each person perceives trauma through their own filter.

Ian, put down the bottle and at least learn to use better English or at least spell check. It's free dude. Oh yeah, you are/were a Marine. Nuff said. My bad

I hope that Ostrom recovers.

This veteran risked his life to protect our country.

Hopefully, he will receive supportive counselling services.

He also needs continuing job and housing stability.

Scott's life should reflect his bravery.

Thank you Bush/Cheney ... what a service you did for our country!

Oh wait ... Bush was a deserter & Cheney ... let me see ... right ... medical excuse!

And what were the words that came out of our leaders mouth "bring them on" ... easy to say when you're not there and your daughters are off safe drinking beer at college ... sickening .......

JBHiker

It might be better to stay on point. Why do soldiers think that their war is "The most important part of my life already happened". That seems silly to me when there is so much more in this world to accomplish. I don't see that poor attitude in other Veterans.

You will never know unless you experience it first hand. I myself is a Iraq and Afghan vet. Got out and now working at a fast pace busy county hospital ER at a large city. Working in the ER is just cake walk compared to what I experienced in the sandbox over there. It always makes me chuckle when my co-workers complain about the hectic environment on the civilian side. They have it easy.

We "owe him" until the butcher's bill comes in and requires more tax dollars. We're a nation of this-is-nice-but-we-won't-pay-for-it.

boogablue - While I salute the service of everyone who has spent time in the military, I disagree that "we owe him a home." Serving in the military was a choice he made and he was paid a salary for his service. Why does anyone owe him a home because he spent one four year hitch in the Marines. I do not know if your statement is because you feel he should not have been turned down for the apartment because of the assault charge or if you think we actually should provide him housing. If your comment relates to him being turned down because of the assault charge, all I can say is you do not know the circumstances of that charge or even if it occurred before, during, or after his military service, not that it really should matter. Resorting to violence to settle a dispute is never the right thing to do. It also sounds like this guy has other problems that may or may not all relate to his military service, including a very dysfunctional relationship with his girlfriend. In have sympathy for those who served are are suffering from injuries they received, whether those injuries are physical or mental, but our debt to them only goes so far. We owe him treatment for his injuries for as long as he needs it, but I definitely do not feel that we owe him a home.

Although I agree that none of us know if the assault charges occured before he enlistment, I do know that if they occured after his assimilation to "normal life" it should be seen as a symptom of his disorder. This man has seen and done unspeakable things. Things that you and I would be haunted with, as he is. It is a documented and well established fact that vets in a combat zone have extreme difficulty normalizing to daily life. They react in extreme ways to what the rest of us see as regular stress. It's not that they are angry of hateful, they are just reacting to protect their lives, as they would in a combat scenario. It's hard to kill habits, especially ones that kept you alive. Please keep that in mind when you encounter any vet, let alone a recent vet. It just may save your life.

The problem here is about what we owe men like this and it isn't always about money but about ignorance. We have come a long way in healing the body but we are still back in the fifties when it comes to healing the mind. This man and many more like him are suffering and they have no chance in hell of living a normal life.

We have to quit pretending that we can send soldiers into combat like it was a super bowl and that everything is just peachy when the game is over especially if we win. This man needs help and he needed time to adjust with his own kind before being put back into society. Now he is alone and confused and nobody understands him and what is even worse, most don't want to understand something that scares them or is too much for them to stomach, so instead most brush him off until we have a real excuse to ignore him like drug addiction. It easier to bury the dead when we can prove they are truly dead and I would say this man is just about there.

Makes you realize why some soldiers burned the flag when they got home from Vietnam. Of course we wouldn't acknowledge they were soldiers because they had long hair and were using drugs. Doesn't paint the kind of image that Republicans want to paint about war. Kind of hard to go on about GOD and country when God isn't involved in what the country is doing.

Of course once we lock up all the homosexuals in this country this poor soldiers problem will go away ;)

I think your tune would change if you were a vet.

JSinSD, What we need for these service members is a place where they can receive meaningfull necessary treatment and a gradual transition back into the civilian world. Perhaps something on the order of the Depression Era Civilian Conservation Corps, where they still have a community of people who share the same life experience, a sort of half-way program. They can slowly make the adjustment back into civilian life while earning a living and providing needed service to the nation and our communities. By the way, all the members of the Bush administration should be assigned "volunteer" service in the program where they can see what they have wrought with their policies. Of course, it might not be safe for them to be walking among these heroes.

@ JS in SD There's a level of HATE AMERICANS FIRST in your comment. Duty... We have a duty to those we have asked to KILL IN OUR NAME. The problem with folks like you is that you hold no loyalty to those whom, if on the front-combat lines, would fight and die next to you in the trenches. YOU ARE THE WEAKEST LINK. Folks like you need to seriously question whether or not you would rather live somewhere else besides the USA. I think as Americans we should first protect Americans, and if we can't do that, we need to question do we really want an America where Americans will not protect you in times of trouble!!! We don't need any more traitor-possible people like you out there. Yes it is TECHNICALLY Volunteer service, but if given economic opportunity, most don't volunteer. You won't see Mitt Romney's children volunteering into service. VERY FEW IF ANY children of the super-rich serve.

Just because it is "Volunteer" adds nor takes away from the risk, and forced conscription is still possible - that is why it is MANDATORY to sign up for Selective Service.

You kinda make me sick.

Vets from every war have suffered from PTSD, we just called it different things: "battle fatigue" or "shell shock" just to name a couple. It is true that seeking psychological help is more acceptable now than it used to be but if you ask any Marine whether they are suffering and need support the answer is still and probably always will be "sir, no sir!" because, you see, a Marine doesn't break down...

Here is a Marine's story - a new ebook just out from a Vietnam Vet with PTSD- The Boy Died In Vietnam.

That requires money. Talk to your senator and representatives to make sure your VA support groups are getting the funding they need

prob because lazy never had to do fightng for themself civies like you think of them as "just bullet sponges" and care more about why the goverment isnt giving them watever they want so demand jobs and theres no money to give to vet programs

Hey Chris- the VA hospitals are always looking for new volunteers to work with the vets. My mother and I can introduce you to the folks at the Spinal Cord Injury Unit at the VA in Brockton, Mass if you're interested. Most of the guys there served in Vietnam, a few served in Korea, but they're getting more and more young guys from Iraq and Afcrapistan.

Or just go to whatever VA hospital is nearest to you and offer to lend a hand.

If we wait for Congress to solve our problems... well... you know the rest...

Brokinarrow,

As much as I dislike congress and the state of our political system, I can say that the one thing I'm actually proud of is my senator....yup I like one of my politicians...I'm pretty sure it's a sign of the Apocalypse....but my point is that Patty Murray is one of the few people out there that is actually making a deference for the men and women that served. Oh and the greatest thing about her, is that she is about making actual changes and some of those are just simple common sense adjustments that cost almost nothing, though she does fight for funding and services that these people need.

Full disclosure: I've had family in the military, though none of them were ever deployed in the Middle East nor would they ever have faced such deployment (I won't waste time talking about their jobs, but trust me they would of never been sent over), while I have been to Iraq, I wasn't in the military and if it matters I didn't spent any time in the Green Zone.

Seattle Mary - haha, that is kinda scary (likable politicians, who woulda guessed??) but VERY awesome that Senator Murray is looking after the vets like that!

I agree: vets deserve a hell of a lot better than they are getting. The way we treat our service people both enlisted and retired is an absolute travesty. That being said, the service members have to be willing to get the treatment; to admit that they have a problem. Like it or not there's still a pretty big stigma, particularly in the Corps, and no Marine that I know would ever be willing to admit they need help. It's a multi-faceted issue and it definitely needs more attention than it's getting.

Thank you, and all of you, for your service. We owe you a debt far greater than we will ever be able to pay. Semper Fi.

Read my Msg at #41, Angie. It's not a matter of "not admitting it" in order to seek help. Often it's not even knowing you have a problem. I didn't. I didn't know for almost 40 years...

What I did know was that, after Viet Nam, I made sure that I disguised my service on my resumes because the reaction back then was not sympathy or understanding. It was revulsion. To admit to being a vet from that war was to guarantee that you'd never get a call back for the job because everyone knew that we were baby killing nuts who would likely go postal at slight provocation. I remember one of my first dates with my current wife - at a 4th of July Parade. As a group of Viet Nam vets marched by, my wife to be asked me why I wasn't marching with them. I could only look at her with astonishment. The guys marching were "street people", the ones whom life had handled so harshly that they no longer cared and marched under their signs because the memory was all they had. If you wanted to have a normal life and not be treated like a pariah, you just kept quiet about it.

Seek help? That wasn't really an option, even if you suspected you needed it. Most didn't suspect it and few would have admitted it, in view of the opprobrium which attached.

Great post oldfarte...younger people now don't have a clue what it was like to return from Vietnam. I too didn't know I had a problem until recently...then I got into treatment and even returned to Vietnam to write a book about it. It is ironic that I received a better reception when I came back to Vietnam in 2011 than I did in 1969! Good luck to you!

I'm sorry you experienced it, too, "Boy". For myself, it was just something I buried. Didn't mention. Didn't think about. Tried to ignore. And I was lucky. I built an okay life, but I have to admit that sometimes it haunts me. A few weeks ago, I was outside a shoe store, which advertised a "10% Military Discount" and a flood of emotions just hit me. I don't recall any such signs during or after Nam. What I do recall is walking along the Ocean overview on Palos Verdes, shortly after getting back, and some older woman, sitting on a bench, bestirred herself to get up, walk over to me and spit on my uniform. That told me as much as I needed to know about announcing my status as a Vet. And I didn't. But I had brothers in arms who didn't even get that much out of their service. I hope your book gives them the belated honor they are due.

I can only agree wholeheartedly. I am a Nam Veteran with severe PTSD. I did two tours, which was
unusual during the Nam War, but not unusual today. Something happens to our
psyche when we are pushed over the edge, and have too much
stress.

I spent much of the past ten years, being angry and reliving my anger, and I have found small
relief as the wars have started to wind down. But I have also come to the
realization that there are just a lot of things (like wars) that can't be
controlled, and that people will participate in, generation after generation,
and not much can be done about it.

My Veterans Administration chaplain/counselor used to say that a good revenge upon our
society was to live a long life. I think there is a saying in the Marine Corps
(me being an Army draftee/enlistee) that says, "EAT THE APPLE AND @!$%# THE
CORPS!" And I think that what it means to me is you just have to accept that a
part of your spiritual self is missing or damaged, find some self meaning and
respect for what you have experienced, and just live your life, as long, and as
fruitfully, as possible, accepting those things you can't change, but finding
those little moments you can?

Anyway, your comments were RIGHT ON, and are exactly what I've been saying for many years.
Thanks for your post. Roger Stavitz in Danforth, ME

You are so right. Vets come home and federal employees complain when they get veterans preference for federal jobs. Employers don't want to hire them because they don't have the right experience for the job at $8 an hour. VA Hospital is there for them, if you want to wait 3 months for an appointment, or 7 hours at the emergency room. How about PTSD diagnosed vet being put in a treatment room with no pillows, no blankets, and no doctor or care, alone for 3 hours - then getting in trouble with the VA because the vet freaks out? Who really cares out there? Congress is talking about cutting back on veterans' healthcare now. It is all platitudes, "we support the troops", until it comes to proving it.

Old Squid, I'm surprised you weren't collapsed. And I agree with you 100% Dubya is/was the worst. And Cheney was worse than Dubya. Total scum. But hey, a lot of money was made, right? Pathetic.

To all the Vets who served, THANK YOU. We who didn't will never know what you went through.

Dee-3628888

WW-II Veterans alive today still experience PTSD. It existed among Civil War Soldiers, WW-I (Shell-shock) WW-II, and Korea. You are simply unaware it existed then. The VA is, and is still treating WW-II vets for this condition.

Actually, almost every WWII vet I know became an alcoholic and most of them beat their wives and kids. Happy guys yeah, funtioned well didn't they? Difference then is that the women took it like good little girlies and kids were owned by their parents then. Post Office hired them all back then. GI bill was free. Cops looked the other way, and employers never interferred. The world has changed and society is not tolerant of the self-pity, violence, and alcohol or drug abuse vets bring home with them. Don't believe WWII vets were stronger, they certainly were not.

I don't know the answer to that Dee and maybe if we did, we could HELP, but until then ALL vets need more support then they are getting. All the money they put into the wars, they need to match here at home when it comes to rehabilitation of the troops for whatever they need to either keep them in the ranks, or get them back into the civilian world...WE MUST NOT FORGET!!! Good Bless our men and women in uniform.

Air Force Vet and mom of an Army soldier

Dee you are just uninformed that isn't your fault, it is hard to look the truth in the eye.

A good question, Dee, and some great responses. Society was different after WW II. The press was
controlled by large corporations after WW II (no internet), and it was not
patriotic to report all the PTSD problems. As Arrive says, my neighbor, when I
was a kid, was an Air Force Colonel, and you could hear the beatings down the
block, see the bruises on his wife's face, his kids stole and drank his booze,
and life went on without even a mention of any problems, whatsoever. People
lived in a world, isolated with their own problems, and if anyone complained,
they were told to SHUT UP, and that IT WAS ONLY THEY who were having
problems.

Women were not drafted or allowed in WW II, and when the men came back, they were told to QUIT THEIR JOBS, and give them back to the men, and become housewives, once again. Being the only
industrialized country untouched by bombing, our economy came back like a team
of horses, with jobs for everyone. People felt like they had saved the free
world, and America, and that there had been an actual end to the conflict,
whereas in Vietnam, and today, we negotiate with the enemy so we can end the war
and come home, as we have run out of money to fight the war, and will to
continue.

The only answer is to fully fund the VA for the veterans, but in truth, there is no real answer, because as
long as societies continue to have wars for profit, power and gain, there will
always be the wounded left to their fate, with wounds that often can't be
repaired. As many on this blog have commented, us civilians have been lucky in
that the war didn't touch us, and was fought in another country. The biggest
problem most of us civilians had back home was controlling our out of control
credit card consumer feast (as opposed to rationed food and gasoline in WW II).

Best of luck to this new crop of vets, and I support you, and cry for you, as I sometimes cry for myself.
Roger Stavitz in Danforth, ME.

Excuse me, Dee, for wanting to punch you out...

Firstly, I have known Vets from both WWI and WWII, including my father (you can see his story on "Band of Brothers"). They may not have called it PTSD (that term came years after Viet Nam, when they finally realized they needed a name for what they were seeing), but they had it. However, they also came back to a grateful country, to military parades and to hero status. Almost anywhere they went, there were others who had been through similar experiences, so the isolation was less. By the time of Viet Nam, however, only a fraction of the population served and, far from returning to a hero's welcome, we were treated as somehow defective and "damaged". Indeed, most of the populace blamed us for the war (as tho' we'd picked our own draft numbers...). The society was not supportive, it was actually hateful toward us. Fortunately, the veterans of the two Gulf Wars and of Afghanistan have generally returned to a more favorable public attitude, but they also constituted an even smaller proportion of the population than did Viet Nam Vets. When everybody's dad had fought the Japs or the Germans, there was a community of Veterans and that, more than anything, mitigated the feelings of isolation which contribute so much to PTSD. When a fraction of a percent of the populace has dodged IED's in Iraq, it's a tad harder to find "comrades" who can help you cope.

One other thing, as well, after WWII, Vets were given primacy - in employment, in social situations, etc. The whole nation turned to the task of reintegrating them. My father got to go to college on the VA. VA benefits post-Viet Nam barely covered the costs of my books. I had to work up to 5 jobs at a time (at least one of them full time) to support myself. Benefits now are more generous, but costs are also more onerous. And, of course, the isolation persists, complicated by the lack of any consensus that the wars were "good ones", an issue that WWII and WWI Vets never faced.

And, finally, there is the difference in the wars themselves. My father, a paratrooper, faced down Sepp Dietrich's Tiger Tanks during the Bulge, but he also had the benefit of a front line. When you rotated off the line, you had a chance for "down time". In a world where any pile of rags can be an IED or where every hanging vine can be a tripwire for a boobie trap, it's different. There are no safe areas. No down time. No safe place. The civilians who welcomed my father's platoon in France, even in Germany, would shower love on you, if not out of gratitude, then in return for a Hershey Bar. In Viet Nam, or Iraq, or Afghanistan, the person who happily accepts your MRE is likely to go home and pick up an AK with the intention of shooting you the next time you showed up. If you don't think that affects your attitude, I'd suggest you need to reassess.

SO, are we getting weaker? Are we all "p*ssies"? No. I think the world has changed. So have the wars. It is hardly surprising that the consequences, too, may have changed.

Dennis, my hat's off to ya for your service sir, but, I don't think you were so much hated, as just misunderstood, and it was the "war" in VietNam that was hated, not you. People were in such a turmoil where the government wasn't givin' straight answers, our brothers, cousins, uncles and neighbors were comin' home in body bags by the day, and nobody really knew wtf was goin' on. All people who were against the "war" in Nam could do was protest against it, and sadly, everybody involved in it. It missed lots o' people that you didn't volunteer for that cluster @!$%#, you got drafted by good ol' Uncle Sam. I applaud your service sir, even though I'm very anti war, but I AM very human. I'm glad you came home safe

But you can do something about it, at least to help start...VOTE!

Bull@!$%#, I saw plenty of sailors spit on in San Diego, don't know where you were at.

Spitting on returning soldiers was disgraceful. No excuse for it.

Steelermama

- I was home-ported out of San Diego '66 - '68. Came back there from Nam three times on a heavy cruiser, and did my liberty in S.D, Long Beach, San Francisco, and Tijuana. Never got spit at, witnessed it, or heard about it.

Same in Boston '69 and '70. Even went on 'Liberty' in the 'Peoples Republic of Cambridge' after coming back from 'Nam a 4th time - no spitting.

So you're saying you just stood by and watched sailors get spit at?? You didn't do anything? That certainly says a lot about you - and it's not good.

Hi, Old Squid. Sometimes you see things and sometimes they happen when you weren't there. One night on my guard tower, I saw two, large cats, gamboling and playing as they ran in to the
garbage dumb on the perimeter at night. I was the only one there to see it, and someone else might say it is a fantasy, or I'm telling a story.

I have met at least two Vietnam Vets in the course of my treatment who were spit on, and on the RARE
occasions when this happened, it was usually at disembarkation points, often in California, a very angry, rebellious state during the Vietnam War.

My deceased Vet Center counselor, Bob Brelle, told me that when he came back from his first tour as a Marine Dog Handler in 1966, at the airport in CA, dressed in his Marine class A uniform, he leaned over to pick up his sea bag, and an old lady pushed her ice cream cone on to the back of his uniform, like you might stub out a cigarette. I guess what surprised me most of all was this was at the end of his first tour, in '66, but after all, it was California, where protest and anger against our societies raged.

And when I moved up here to Maine, I met a Navy vet who had stood on the deck of his aircraft carrier in his Class A uniform, in formation, as it passed underneath the Golden Gate Bridge, in 1973. People up on the bridge dropped eggs all over them. That was a time when being in the military and fighting in the President's war, as ordered, was often not respected.

But I agree with you, and think most veterans never saw any spitting behavior, but once again, only I saw those two cats playing and running as they jumped in to the garbage pit at night, and I'll bet they came with some regularity, and I was lucky to catch a glimpse, but for most guards, it went unnoticed. Roger Stavitz in Danforth, ME.

PS I did two tours as a draftee/enlistee, near the end of the war, and my last duty station at Phu Bai Airport I call the 101st Heroin/Race Riot/Fragging Division. I was not professional military, and was a very angry young man when I was ETSed. Sometimes, looking back, I think I felt like spitting on myself, and at times, felt like KILLING A LIFER (but no plans to do so, as I am not a violent person by nature), like many of the other men in our unit. So for those few who were actually spitting on our troops, there were men in our units who were killing their own officers and NCOs.

Roger - This has been studied by a Vietnam Vet, Jerry Lembke, and published as "The Spitting Image; Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam" - ISBN-10: 0814751474

Look it up on Amazon.

"One of the most resilient images of the Vietnam era is that of the anti-war protester — often a woman — spitting on the uniformed veteran just off the plane. The lingering potency of this icon was evident during the Gulf War, when war supporters invoked it to discredit their opposition.

In this startling book, Jerry Lembcke demonstrates that not a single incident of this sort has been convincingly documented. Rather, the anti-war Left saw in veterans a natural ally, and the relationship between anti-war forces and most veterans was defined by mutual support. Indeed one soldier wrote angrily to Vice President Spiro Agnew that the only Americans who seemed concerned about the soldier's welfare were the anti-war activists.

While the veterans were sometimes made to feel uncomfortable about their service, this sense of unease was, Lembcke argues, more often rooted in the political practices of the Right. Tracing a range of conflicts in the twentieth century, the book illustrates how regimes engaged in unpopular conflicts often vilify their domestic opponents for "stabbing the boys in the back."

Concluding with an account of the powerful role played by Hollywood in cementing the myth of the betrayed veteran through such films as Coming Home, Taxi Driver, and Rambo, Jerry Lembcke's book stands as one of the most important, original, and controversial works of cultural history in recent years."

See ya at Togus???

Ron - East Boothbay

Hey, Ron. Welcome Home! I posted a Reply concerning Jerry's book and Bob Greene's book, Homecoming: When the Soldiers Returned from Vietnam, at the end of page 2 of this MSNBC blog. If you ever see me at Togus, you'd just find another old, gray haired, fat, boring veteran, wearing a tie dyed t shirt, or maybe you'll find me in the cemetary sooner than I think, and maybe my stone will be next to yours....LOL...LOL?

NOT A SINGLE INCIDENT? Holy Crap! I cannot count the number of times I got spit on, "egged", hit with water balloons (and worse - I only hope they washed their hands after they picked up that dog turd they tossed). And, of course, the verbal abuse was almost non-stop, my personal favorite (amidst the ubiquitous "baby killer") was "Fascist Sea Pirate"...

I don't know who these "researchers" are, but I know 20 or 30 guys who can confirm that getting spit on was a commonplace. Indeed, it got so bad that we were told NOT to wear our uniforms off base.

Unbelievable.

oldfarte

And you did nothing?? Un-freakin' believable. Where was this at? You certainly don't sound like the type of guy I was stationed with.

So what's "Uncle" going to do to you?? Cut off your hair and send ya to 'Nam?? - Fugg - he's already done that!!!