In his email, Barber describes what many families go through when they witness their sons and daughters coming home in flag-draped coffins, hidden from view by the Bush Administration. And, even more telling in this case, some of the horrors veterans suffering from [Post Traumatic Stress Disorder] face once back on the homefront.
Here's just a couple of paragraphs of Barber's letter:
All is not okay or right for those of us who return home alive and supposedly well. What looks like normalcy and readjustment is only an illusion to be revealed by time and torment. Some soldiers come home missing limbs and other parts of their bodies. Still others will live with permanent scars from horrific events that no one other than those who served will ever understand.
PTSD comes in many forms not understood by many: but yet if a soldier has it, America thinks the soldiers are crazy. PTSD comes in the form of depression, anger, regret, being confrontational, anxiety, chronic pain, compulsion, delusions, grief, guilt, dependence, loneliness, sleep disorders, suspiciousness/paranoia, low self-esteem and so many other things.
Oh, and here's the punch line: Barber committed suicide a few days ago.
Sweet motherfucking tapdancing christ, will you look at what we've done.
1 comment:
There should be some kind of psychiatric or psychological treatment offered to all vets free of charge. There are stories about WWII vets who never got over their war experiences, but never got any help. They were expected to just "soldier on." And that was a war that all of the Western world thought was important! We revere those vets for their service, but we treat their sons and grandsons who went through the VietNam and Iraq wars as if they're whiny crybabies. That's just not right.
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