Re: Great Stories

Men didn't talk a lot about what they did or saw. Now, we have all this post-war trauma that men (and women) have to face after their tour of duty is over. She asked the question, "What changed?"

I have a feeling that post traumatic shock has always existed. My dad joined the navy at 16 about six months after Pearl Harbor. Later I heard that his parents had to almost physically restrain him from running off and joining earlier. With the ink on his high school diploma barely dry, my Ozark mountain born daddy went off to Virginia, California and the South Pacific in a matter of months.

Most of the time when Daddy talked about the war he told silly stories about wild leaves, bad food in the mess tent and dancing with some movie stars in a USO in California. Once in a while he would tell tales of horror and brutality, sometimes the Japanese and sometimes his fellow sailors. After these stories, he got very quiet and wanted to be left alone. I now know he was reliving things he probably could not tell children. The war never left my father, he may have been able to function pretty well in every day life, but the sights sounds and horrors he suffered as a teen-aged soldier never left him. I have a feeling this is true for many veterans of most of the wars throughout history. I have three nephews and a niece who have been in Iraq. There stories are also horrific. They have all had to watch friends die. I wonder if they are also forever changed from the young twenty-somethings who were hoping to serve there country and get help to continue their education. Tweet