"Throw in the towel, close the barn door, give up the ghost." It's too late for them...or us. Even the Tao expresses how it's more difficult to watch someone you love suffer than it is to have the same suffering happen to you; perhaps because you have to look on in empathy and concern, unable at last to save the person you love from the fate that surrounds them.
Two years ago last week, when I first started talking with the then-suicidal subject of "Eyewitness to Combat," a hardened Vietnam vet, Marine, with 40 years of severe, chronic PTSD, one of the harshest things he'd say was, in utter (but angry) defeat that it was "too late" for the Vietnam vets -- that they'd missed their chance to be healed. The country had passed them by, true, but what he was really alluding to was that they themselves -- starting with him -- had given up. So much has happened in the meantime, it's hard for me to remember all the specifics, but I know that this phrase went through my heart like a dagger. We'd struggle so hard to get him back on track and back into the fight, and then some setback would happen -- and always this refrain. "It's too late for us." In other words, just give up on us -- we've already given up on ourselves.
Fortunately, over the last two years and the progression towards healing that this vet has experienced, this phrase has come up less and less, to nowadays not at all. And I'm very thankful for the change. It's NOT too late for Vietnam vets. If anything, the process should start with them. They've been waiting...in neglect AND in humility the longest. We should support them in their hope for healing at long last...and not keep them at the back of the line, to which they've become accustomed. Vietnam veterans are and can be a total treasure...and a vital, vibrant element in pursuing healing for all combat veterans with PTSD. Let's just also make sure to include them as an important part: honoring those to whom honor is due.
