Healing Combat Trauma

Vietnam Veteran Turns to Acupuncture, Qi Gong and Yoga for Relief from PTSD

We've been discussing various forms of Complementary and Alternative Medicine, or "CAM" for short, which seem to have potential therapeutic usefulnessness for treating PTSD.  Here's a mention in a recent article in the Salt Lake Tribune of March 14, 2008, of other Eastern methods, including the energetic medicine, "Qi Gong," which appear to have brought some relief to one Vietnam war-era nurse.  From an article by Matthew D. LaPlante:

Mary Jane Shipley is a 62-year-old former trauma nurse who was stationed at a mobile Army hospital in Vung Tau, Vietnam. 

Shipley's "eyes well with tears," LaPlante writes, at the recollection of the young men she watched die there, burnt and broken and missing pieces of their bodies as they faded away." 

He continues, "Shipley says she knew almost immediately after returning home there was something wrong with her. In part, it was the helicopters. She could hear them, even smell them, ferrying patients to the Salt Lake City hospital where she worked - sometimes minutes before any of her associates could."

Her other symptoms are hallmarks of PTSD: "She had trouble relating to other people. She was restless. She was constantly afraid. Perhaps to the eyes of today's doctors and nurses, Shipley's illness would have been obvious. But back then, no one reached out."

In Shipley's case, according to LaPlante, "It took her 30 years to realize she wasn't alone. Now in treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, the Western-trained nurse has found Eastern therapies to be most helpful. She practices yoga and qigong. And at least twice a week, she undergoes acupuncture. "It took me so long to figure out what works for me," Shipley laments, "and I still have so much trouble."

The Danger of Incomplete Mourning: "Unable to Achieve the Catharsis of Grief"

Deep within the William Styron memoir, "Darkness Visible," which we blogged about recently, here, is this observation of his about what might have precipitated his own depression.  Because it touches on things we've covered over and over again on this blog, it seemed very worth mentioning -- as well as quite profound:

The morbid condition proceeded, I have come to believe, from my beginning years – from my father, who battled the gorgon for much of his lifetime, and had been hospitalized in my boyhood after a depression spiraling downward that in retrospect I saw greatly resembled mine.  The genetic roots of depression seem now to be beyond controversy.  But I’m persuaded that an even more significant factor was the death of my mother when I was thirteen; this disorder and early sorrow – the death or disappearance of a parent, especially a mother, before or during puberty – appears repeatedly in the literature on depression as a trauma sometimes likely to create nearly irreparable emotional havoc. 

 

The danger is especially apparent if the young person is affected by what has been termed “incomplete mourning” – has, in effect, been unable to achieve the catharsis of grief, and so carries within himself in later years an insufferable burden of which rage and guilt, and not only damned-up sorrow, are a part, and become the potential seeds of self-destruction.

From Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness, by William Styron.

"Winners Go to Harvard, Losers Go to Vietnam..."

(Cough, cough -- sounds like bullsh*t to me!)

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The post title comes from a wonderful -- though not to him, and not at the time -- reminiscence sent to me lately by a Vietnam veteran buddy, telling his sad tale of woe about linking up with an old high school friend on homecoming, and getting essentially tossed under the bus.  

I'll include Pat's retelling here, because it's much better than I could do paraphrasing it, but really -- there needs to be a special circle of hell reserved for dirtbags like this guy he mentions.  I wonder if anything happens to them in their later lives that would somehow even the score.  Perhaps they develop some compassion, or maybe if they do, it's just too little, too late. 

(In a reverse post-script added here before the text, not after, I have gone back and checked with Mother Harvard -- who practically keeps a retina scan of all of us who've ever gone there, in the vault, just in case we end up wealthy and can donate the big bux -- and the guy in question seems not even to have attended, let alone graduated from there, which only makes this story that much more painful to contemplate.) 

Herewith, Pat's story about a homecoming moment that has stuck with him ever since.  To set the stage, he had just finished fighting in Khe Sanh, in 1966, on his first tour with the Marine Corps, 2/9, H & S "Flames" Company:

"The C-130 took off immediately with us all tucked safely aboard on our way to the real world, The United States of America and for me; Houston, TEXAS.  On the hop from Hawaii to the world, I was thinking about my mom and dad, my two brothers and two sisters, my sweetheart-Betty Jo and all of the high school friends that I had left behind and even about my coach and teachers. 

I began to daydream that would get off of the plane in Houston and everyone would be there to meet me and they would all run out to me and hug me and cry.  I would take Betty into my arms and kiss her and swing her around in the air as I held her close to me.  We would laugh, we would cry and we would kiss.  She would smell so wonderful and would be so soft and it would be all great.  They would all shout and cheer and clap for me and push around me to reach out and touch my uniform.  I would be appreciated. 

I would go to this big homecoming party and there would be a "Welcome Home banner," eggnog, lots of hot food, every Christmas decoration ever made and everyone would be overjoyed to see me and so proud of me and elated that I had made it back alive.  I would be like a real hero and the center of attention.  

I would borrow my big brother Mike's 1965 red Ford Mustang and cruise by my old high school and everyone would be pumped to see me, have missed me, flock around me and want to know what I had been through.  I guess I really did want to be like my dad, a real war hero.  We had been deep in the bush on the verge of being overrun by a NVA Division, taking many casualties, less than 36 hours before -- and my brain could not seem to make the transition. 

We finally landed at Travis Air Force Base in California, the ramp went down and mules were there to unload the caskets on.  We filed off, were directed to a taxi area and caught a cab to the San Francisco Airport.  And then just like that we were walking around in downtown America.  I was so uncomfortable that I almost wanted to get back on the C-130 and go back to Nam... 

The airport was real busy and I don’t remember much except being real uptight and anxious like I expected something to jump out and get me.  There were mostly military personnel loading and unloading so I didn’t feel totally out of place with the people but just uneasy with the surroundings. 

We caught our flight to Houston, TX and it was very nice.  I remember smelling the perfume of the flight attendants and then the realization hit me: honest to God, I really was back in the “world”. 

But it all still kind of seemed like a dream, like I would move from real time to slow motion and back and always through a haze. 

I then allowed myself to let my guard down and I began to get real excited and almost cried but choked it back.

We landed and taxied into Houston Hobby Airport and my heart was pounding so fast and hard that I could feel it in my ears.  I was really, really excited!! 

As we came down the stair ramp I could see a crowd of people -- moms and dads, sisters and brothers, girlfriends and friends -- all running toward us and hugging the people disembarking from the plane.  They were laughing, crying, and talking loudly and excitedly.  I became to be overcome with emotion and my eyes completely teared up and I couldn’t see.  I couldn’t wait to see all of those I had waited so long to see.  As the crowd moved in small groups to the terminal I searched the area and the realization also hit me; no one was there to greet me. 

I was finally back home and all alone.  My breath went out of me in a gasp and a pain hit me like a bullet in the gut. I actually got dizzy.  I was left standing on the tarmac by myself as the crowd of people cleared out.  My heart sank to the bottom of my shoes with disappointment.  In all of the rush to get home, I had forgotten to call anyone and let them know that I was even coming home.  I had come from hell to paradise and no one even knew about it.  Man, I really felt bad. 

Even though it was my fault, I started getting really angry and went into the terminal to pick up my sea bag. Everyone was rushing every which way.  I guess I thought that everyone should have known I had just returned from Nam but they all just pushed past and around me like I didn’t even exist.  I wanted to shout: “Hey, I just got back from the friggin bush; I left buddies back there. I just came out of combat and was killing gooks two days ago.  Doesn’t anyone give a friggin damn?!”  But no one even looked at me. 

As I was making my way through the crowd, I spotted a friend of mine from Memorial High School, Jim Baird.  He and I had been on the high school swimming team together but he was from the upper class Memorial area and I was from the middle class Spring Branch area.  I thought we were friends, though. 

My heart jumped; here was my chance, someone to welcome me home and it was one of my ole swimming buddies.  I moved up behind him and said: “Hey Jim, where have you been?”  He turned, looked at me in my Class A’s and got a frown on his face.  He said coldly: “I’m going to Harvard”. He then turned abruptly away from me.  He didn’t even ask anything about me at all. 

I touched him on the shoulder and said: “Hey buddy, how have you been.  I’m real glad to see you again.  I’ve been in Vietnam for the past year.”  He said: “Why? Only losers go to Vietnam, winners go to Harvard.”  And he just turned again and walked off like I wasn’t alive. 

I was completely caught off guard and was actually shocked.  I had never expected anything like this.  To be rudely snubbed by someone I thought was a close friend.  I had heard of this back “in country” but really didn’t believe it.  My eyes watered up again but this time from God Damned seething anger and I hated the fucking world and everyone in it.   No one really did give a tinker's damn about us or if we were there or not.  I wanted to track him down and kill the son of a bitch."

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Well, Pat, I wasn't gonna offer to help you track him and kill him -- and I know that's just a figure of speech you're using ;-) -- but I figured even at this long-distant remove, that if I helped you find him -- you could at least leave him a flaming paper bag of cowsh*t on his doorstep, ring the doorbell, and hide in the bushes while you watched, with pleasure, his attempting to stamp out the flames (in his loafers, with no socks?! It's a Harvard thing.  You wouldn't understand :-). 

(The flaming bag of cow poo is an age-old, country-esque revenge fantasy, conflated in my mind with the wonderful one Richard Brautigan wrote about in "The Good Work of Chickens" -- that involves dumping several tons of chickensh*t on someone's lawn who he's annoyed with, to teach them a lesson.) 

But the reality is, it doesn't sound like the guy even went to Harvard, after all.  So I'm not able to be of that much help.

However, Pat might be pleased to know -- in addition to his tormentor probably having been quite the BS-er himself -- than in the meantime, Harvard has developed some sensitivity towards veterans -- there's even a veterans group at Harvard, linked here. (They say that "there are thousands of living Harvard Veterans, and more than 1,200 Harvard graduates have given their lives in war." - 1,200 isn't a lot, proportional to the rest of the U.S., but it's still better than say, "none.")

According to their site:

"It is interesting to note that, on any given day, there are more than 150 members of the Armed Forces of the United States present in the classrooms and activities of Harvard University. 

There are approximately 85 returning Veterans who are pursuing degrees at the Harvard Business School, while 60, mostly active duty officers , are in Master’s Degree or Executive programs at the Harvard Kennedy School. There are small numbers of Veterans at other Harvard Graduate Schools, and 35 or so students are in the ROTC program at Harvard College, which is administered through the Paul Revere Battalion at MIT."

Also, although there's some dispute about whether Thucydides could ever have said this, there IS a quote attributed to him that has inspired smart Ivy League types to also become soldiers and Marines.  The quote that motivates them is this: "The nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools."  Well, it's a catchy phrase, anyhow -- and gets its point across.

I can't remember whether that quote is one that inspired Nate Fick to become a (now a former) Marine officer -- Fick is a graduate of both Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and the Harvard Business School -- he quotes a different Thucydides one in his superlative book, One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer":

"We should remember that one man is much the same as another, and that he is best who is trained in the severest school."

(Not sure whether that "severest school," though, is the Marine Corps, or Harvard, or both :-) 

In any case, just to prove that Harvard has in fact come a long way since not sending very many of its sons and daughters off to war, I was able to be an invited guest several years ago at a celebration honoring Harvard graduates who were veterans, held at the Harvard Business School, around the time of the Marine Corps' birthday.  The room was filled with all sorts of people, in uniform and out, milling around, networking, and really, it seemed like a great cross-section of graduates, from the very old to the very young, from the retired and former servicemembers to those who had just signed up. 

(It also provided me with one of my Embarrassing Life Moments -- asking a smartly-dressed man*, who later turned out to be a multi-star general out of uniform, and the keynote speaker -- what his "outfit" was, because it was so "interesting" and "beautiful."  To which he gamely replied, after explaining what it was, "and who, by the way, are you?!" or words to that effect.  He was probably more so looking to ask, "and who let the riffraff in"?!)  In any case, here's a photo or two from that event, which Nate Fick was actually emceeing.  Just to prove that there are in fact, graduates of Harvard who are also veterans -- though it truly seems that Pat's tormentor, above, actually had spine enough to be neither...

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There's also an interesting OpEd piece from a recent issue of Military.com, in which another former Marine who served in Vietnam -- though later than Pat, above -- talks about the classic town v. gown disparity in who actually serves.  It's called, tellingly, "The Somerville Marines," and I wish someone in the Harvard veterans community would either confirm or rebut it, because it seems to need to a response from the other side of the fence.  (Somerville is one of Harvard University's poorer, working class neighbors, and the article's author, Joseph Kinney, makes the point that it sends disproportionately too many of its sons and daughters to die, versus Harvard.  The article is linked here.)

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Editor's note: * My mistake, obviously, but hey, he didn't look like the guy in the published program -that guy was wearing a khaki green uniform -- and I'd never met a multi-star general before :-)  (Or since, either...)  Of course, it's faux pas like these that clearly explain why I blog :-) No social graces whatsoever :-)

The Doppelganger of PTSD: the Unwelcome Stranger Who Follows You Home from War

Over time, more and more grassroots efforts spring up as veterans try to help one another deal with the effects of combat trauma and PTSD.  Some of these are simply conversations, where those who went share what the experience was like, and how they've suffered since -- and ideally, also what they've been able to do about it that helps.  The Peoria Journal Star in today's paper has an article about just such a conversation, held by local central Illinois veterans in conjunction with a traveling exhibit of the Vietnam Wall.  The article is short but poignant in the reminiscences shared by predominantly Vietnam veterans about how combat trauma and resultant PTSD has changed their lives, and not for the better.  Click here for the link to that story. 

There's nothing particularly "extraordinary" or "dramatic" about these men's PTSD or their comments about it -- but that's the thing.  They've very representative of what actual people go through who weren't expecting the experience to scar them for years after combat.  Just one example: a combat photographer with a Ph.D. talks about his own experience. "Divorce, alcohol, drugs, jail, attempted suicide ... I've done them all," he said.  If combat trauma is the stone thrown into the pond, just think of the ripple effects of every item he just mentioned.  Sadly, combat trauma affects not only the participants, but also many of the people in their lives.  Recently I received an unsolicited memoir from a former Marine and Vietnam veteran about his experiences with war and PTSD, and on practically every page the same thing ran true: the enormous remorse and regret he felt from the pain he'd inadvertently inflicted on his family members, because of what he was going through at the time, and couldn't cope with.  Combat trauma, left untreated (and we don't mean, with drugs and alcohol ;-), can become the uninvited guest in far too many veterans' homes and every family gathering.

The German word "Doppelgänger" or "double-goer" comes to us from literature, but seems to have some application with what veterans go through as well.  The Doppelgänger is a person's double, often but not exclusively seen as an evil twin, and often in ominous contexts (premonition of someone's death, etc.).  But in the straight meaning of a connected but separate other self, a veritable "double" self, it conveys what some veterans seem to go through.  The memory of war they've experienced is so profound and powerful, it's permanently "attached" to them.  When they return to society, and have to "re-integrate," the combat self actually never leaves them, and this seems to produce a lot of the pain that they feel.  They frequently acknowledge being "permanently changed" by war -- but yet when the war is over, or when they come back, they're expected to integrate back into society, and into the lives they formerly led.  Many veterans talk about how almost no attention is paid to this experience by the military: you come back, and have to figure this part out for yourself, but it can be deeply troubling.  You can't shake the person you became in war -- in fact, it's always with you, as a "second self."  But at some point you have to come to terms with the fact that both those selves are you, and there is no separation.  In a lot of the pain you hear, see and feel from Vietnam veterans as they share about their experiences, you get a very profound impression that they are in fact feeling shame (and yet connectedness) with the person they became because of war, as well as a desire to protect their loved ones, however incapably, from that very person.  Tremendously, what you also see is a deep desire for other, more recent veterans to profit from their experience.  The "older brothers" (and sisters, but it's mostly men) want their "younger brothers and sisters" not to have to experience the tremendous pain, ostracizing, and neglect they felt -- as well as the inability to come to terms with what it meant.  The Vietnam veterans seem to have a deep, and laudable, desire to become the "readjustment counselors" for today's OIF/OEF veterans.  However, their own healing has to take place first -- and from the expressions of deep pain that get conveyed, you can tell how difficult that healing really is, and sadly, how infrequently it's been able to take place.  (True healing, after all, means going through the pain, processing it, and integrating it into the whole self.  Many people accomplish a "form" of superficial healing, which turns out to abandon them later, by masking over the pain with other "drugs," from drugs and alcohol, to social isolation, to even workaholism, to keep the pain at bay.)

Although we need to write more about this topic separately, even "workaholism" can be a drug to suppress painful memories and experiences.  This "drug" is better suited to some than others -- probably the 'Type A' types "enjoy" it most -- but it's effective as far as it goes, which of course is never quite far enough.  I heard an amazing story from a veterans service officer the other day about the most elapsed time he'd ever seen between someone suffering from combat trauma and realizing he had PTSD.  That's referred to as "delayed onset" but check out how delayed it really was, because of workaholism, most likely.  A World War II veteran, 84 years old.  Had fought in Normandy, Ardennes, the Battle of the Bulge.  He felt he'd led a "blessed life," and had in fact just retired (at 84!).  But in his retirement, with all sorts of unstructured time on his hands, started experiencing nightmares, and would wake up, having soaked the bed.  The nightmares were about what he'd experienced, over 60 years ago(!!!), but which he'd finally had "time" to start bringing up from the vault of memory.  And he was suddenly in terrific psychic pain from this.  Although I applaud the amazing things this man must have done during the intervening 60 years to consider he'd led a "blessed life," I can only wish that he'd also been able to find some healing during that time as well.  Experiencing delayed onset PTSD in your mid-80s, from battle you saw in your 20s, must be a terrible thing indeed.  It's also another reminder about how combat trauma continues to affect veterans from all wars.  And how extending compassion, wisdom and healing to veterans from every war is part of what we ought to be doing, as a society, and often do quite minimally, if at all.

The Perils of Suicide

A chaplain stationed in Iraq writes informally that six of the soldiers in his general area have taken their own lives recently, which is obviously six far too many.  No real conclusions as to why, but some soul-searching (no pun intended) as to how suicide has become "instant gratification" with a weapon when situations are beyond what we can handle.  No matter the reason or the circumstances, what a shame for those people and their families.