If you've been following our "An American Veteran" series the past year on this site about Eddie Livingston -- the World War II veteran and POW who wrote powerfully and simply about the trials of being a veteran with untreated PTSD -- we've set up a "page" for him on Facebook where you can learn more about him and read some of his writings. The page is called "Eddie's Place," and you can click here for that link.
A little bit more about who Eddie is:
A sharecropper's son from Alabama, Eddie enlisted in Army at 15 years old. He joined the 82nd Airborne and volunteered to be part of the "Pathfinders," a small group who parachuted into Normandy ahead of the Allied invasion. He was later captured, and spent a year as a prisoner of war (POW). Eddie fought in five campaigns in Salerno, Sicily, Cassino, Anzio and Normandy, and was a POW at the infamous Belsen-Buchenwald. He received seven purple hearts, three bronze stars with combat "V" for valor, two presidential unit citations, and was awarded, but never received, the distinguished service cross for his valor at Normandy.
There's a movie about the Pathfinders, in which Michael Connor Humphries, himself an Army vet, who played the young Forrest Gump in the movie of the same name, plays the part of Eddie. The movie, "In the Company of Strangers," has just been released overseas. You can watch it via download on the Web, here, or learn more about its production in links on "Eddie's Place" on Facebook.
Despite Eddie's valiant service, he spent most of the last three decades of his life living in abject squalor in Alabama, in a broken-down home without running water or electricity. The letters that he typed to everyone who would listen -- Life magazine, U.S. presidents Kennedy and Johnson, Ann Landers, newspaper editors and of course the VA -- are a powerful testament by a simple, humble man about the pains and perils of being a veteran with untreated PTSD, and so much more. A few sample quotes from Eddie:
"People tell me to forget the war, telling me it is over. Their advice is sound and well-intentioned but impossible to follow. Simply because my mind is not a faucet that I can turn on and off and at will. I am working on it."
and
"Although the war is long over, the experiences of war especially that P.O.W. (experience) still bother me very much at times. I have periods of nervousness and fear in which I am frightened and suspicious of almost everyone."
and
"After four years, seven wounds, a year as a P.O.W., World War II ended for me. I did the best I could, and no man should feel ashamed of his best. I have always known that war is our ultimate failure. But war is an addictive thing. I became addicted, and now I am addicted to agitation. I have no way of knowing how crazy I am. I doubt if the psychiatrist would (even) know. I made the fatal mistake of staying in combat too long. I had no choice; I had to stay. What we know does hurt us. It is what I know that has made me the way I am."
For more about this unsung American hero, read the "An American Veteran" series here, and follow him on the "Eddie's Place" page on Facebook, linked here.
