Honoring Our War Dead

Little Round Top at Gettysburg

 

I think a lot of people read the wrong things into monuments to honor war dead. Each name on a wall represents more than the military. The name represents entire families, changed forever, all damaged beyond any recovery.

In Vietnam, we lost an average of around 15 men a day, each and every day for ten years. It blows the mind to even think about that. For what? Some may argue that it stopped Communist expansion. I still don't know what the hell we were doing there. I see the faces of my buddies who died and I don't understand to this day why they had to die, except for one reason.

The war dead did not die for policy, not some big picture or domino theory or an effort to stop terrorists before they come here. That's the stuff politicians spout along with medals so they can get people to die for their often bad and self-serving ideas.

Troops don't die in wars for policy. They die for each other. That is what makes their sacrifice so honorable. Politicians and governments spout high ideals, but in the end, troops die in war to protect their immediate ground and the lives of their fellow soldiers.

They don't die for the long range goal of freedom. As you can see most of the time, people could care less about them or war as long as it's not affecting their daily lives.

They don't die for the ideals of individual freedom. How can you be free when you're dead? They die for those who serve with them. This unselfish sacrifice for those around them is what makes heroes, not some policy created by a bunch of rich politicians.

When you are willing to die for your buddy in arms, you make the ultimate sacrifice a human can give. That is the high ideal of war. That is why we should always honor our war dead, not because of politics, but because those who died made the ultimate sacrifice for each other under the worst conditions.

The Biology of PTSD

The Biology Of PTSD

  

  To understand the biology of PTSD, one must note the difference between a response to stress and a response to life-threatening trauma. Exposure to stress results in  negative health outcomes, including psychiatric symptoms. Stress can be relieved, with the body no longer reacting to it. With PTSD, adverse effects associated with exposure to trauma continue even decades after the traumatic event.

  The response to fear is centered in the brain's amygdala, the major interface between experience and the body's biochemical response to it. The amygdala decides whether there should be a stress response and, if so, begins the process of activating the  neurochemical and neuroanatomical circuitry of fear.

  It can be just milliseconds before the startle reflex and other defense mechanisms are activated in the central nervous system. The heart rate skyrockets, muscles become flooded with glucose and the "fight-or-flight" response takes over. The hormones cortisol and catecholamines also are released, and the higher the stress level, the greater the cortisol dump. Catecholamines help deliver energy; cortisol works to eventually shut down the emergency response.

  With PTSD, cortisol levels are lowered rather than increased as they are in a classic stress response. Researchers are focusing on how and why trauma can lead to changes in the brain that can produce PTSD symptoms in some individuals but not in others.

  The question is...why has there been a failure of the body to return to its pretraumatic state?"

  The biology of PTSD seems, in many respects, to be different than biological alterations observed in other psychiatric disorders.

  Researchers once thought that low cortisol levels indicated that PTSD sufferers had developed a long-term adaptation to stress. But research has shown that they have reduced volume in the brain's hippocampus, which may be damaged by a massive overdose of cortisol. Many symptoms of PTSD and depression are similar, but PTSD creates different physical changes than depression.

  No cure has been found to date.

Meeting Another Nam Vet, Or Maybe?

A market along Highway 1 about seven miles north of Danang 1968.
Someone on our truck fired a shot in the air and everyone in the market hit the ground in unison.
Moments later, they were all back up. Strange times. (Click picture to make it larger.)

I met a Vietnam veteran last time I was at the store. I saw him in the bathroom washing his hands. He had on a POW jacket and a Vietnam veteran baseball type hat. He was scraggly and had a long grey beard. He was still washing his hands when I left so I waited outside for him.

"Hi, when were you in Nam?" I asked him. 

I will usually ask if I see a guy wearing all that stuff. It's just my curious nature because I'm one of those Nam veterans who doesn't wear the patches and hats and all the other bells and whistles.

"I was there in 64 and 65," he said. "And 66, 67, 68, and 69."

So this guy pretty much had the entire active war covered. That means he would have had to have done five tours.

"I was there in 67 and 68," I said.

"Lots of combat going on then," he said. "The Tet Offensive."

"Yeah, I was there for Tet."

And then the guy took off so fast, I didn't have a chance to talk to him about anything else. He for sure wasn't a lifer. Old lifers don't dress or look like he did. You can always tell an old lifer because they still walk and talk and look like they are wearing starched utilities. Their entire bearing and haircut will scream old lifer. This guy wasn't any of those things. 

I've never heard of any on the ground in-country enlisted man doing the five complete tours that it would take to cover those six years. It's possible he could have been Air Force and flew in and out during that time or he could have been a Blue Water Veteran from a ship that came and went. But I guarantee you, he never served five tours on the ground in Nam. Of course, he never said what branch of the service he was in before he took off.

I have to conclude, based on that brief encounter, that he was a phony. The phony Nam vet will always add more tours for some strange reason, as if one wasn't enough. Those who were really there know that one tour was enough. That's why the phony vet has to embellish because they don't know how bad it really was over there. Some veterans did a six month extension and some did two tours and some may have done three because of unit movements where everyone in the outfit has to go. But five is probably creative science fiction.

The first thing I usually ask is what outfit a guy was with after I ask what years they were in Nam. I didn't have the chance with this guy. If he didn't want people to ask, then why wear all the stuff that announces Nam veteran? He probably did want people to ask, but just not another Nam veteran. All I can say is they are out there, and they have been out there from every war. I could be wrong about this guy, but I doubt it.

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