Nostalgia, Psychoses, Shell Shock, Battle Fatigue: Combat Trauma and the Evolution of PTSD

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Nostalgia, Psychoses, Shell Shock, Battle Fatigue:

Combat Trauma and the Evolution of PTSD

"That 2,000 Yard Stare." Oil on canvas, by Tom Lea, 1944.

The eighteenth and nineteenth century conditions of “Shell Shock”, “hysteria”, “nostalgia” and “psychoses” all gave way to the twentieth century condition; the now familiar term known as “PTSD” or ‘Post Traumatic Stress Disorder’. Combat veterans from all wars and all generations have experienced this after effect of the violence and butchery that is combat.

“Gassed”, 1919 by John Singer Sargent.

Jonathan Shay writes in “Achilles in Vietnam” quoting from Homer’s “Iliad,”  “…let me pass the gates of Death. I wander about the wide hall and gates of death. Give me your hand. I sorrow. (23:88).” [1] Shay writes of the trauma, the psychology and the effects of battle to the psyche of soldiers in combat. Vietnam veterans were shockingly removed from the battlefield to a stateside assignment and on to the streets as discharged soldiers. The rapid removal of these combat veterans and the transition from warrior to civilian all transpired in the span of a few months or even days for some.


For Vietnam veterans the transition to civilian life was incredibly difficult. Vietnam veterans’ treatment changed over time and was tied to the growing unpopularity of the war. These veterans were portrayed more often “as an isolated individual who had only a fragile connection to the rest of American society.” [2]

 

Much of the same ‘isolated individuals’ with ‘fragile connections to society’ could be said of the Civil War veteran. “Psychologically disturbed Civil War veterans were [thus] not entirely ignored in the years after the war, but their problems were probably understated and inadequately understood and/or treated.”[3] In addition, Confederate veterans were not officially recognized as veterans by the U.S. Government until 1953. For obvious reasons, Confederate veterans fared far worse than Union veterans as they were viewed by the Union ‘officially’ with contempt. Southern soldiers returned to a land under ‘reconstruction’; essentially a conquered land occupied by the U.S. Government.

 

Further, their status denied as official “veterans” removed any chances of remittance or pension. At least suffering Union veterans could lay claims for pension benefits. “While suicides occurred among Union soldiers, there is evidence to suggest suicides occurred more frequently in the South during the war and following the defeat and collapse of the Confederacy, as broken soldiers returned home burdened with combat stress as well as the herculean task of rebuilding themselves, their families and the region.”[4] 

 

Returning Vietnam veterans faced much better programs for reintegration than their Civil War counterparts. The “G.I. Bill” paid for college and university tuition. Vietnam veterans “are the best educated veterans in American history.”[5] Many programs served to assist their reintegration and improved their post-service status. Politics and the polarizing view of the Vietnam War placed the Vietnam veteran in the national conversation. And elements of the “anti-war” movement sought to use the Vietnam veteran as an example of the failing policies of each administration with respect to prosecution of the war.


An image was crafted by the left and the anti-war movement that returning veterans were ashamed of their service in Vietnam; that they felt guilt at committing atrocities and were demonized by the war. The “point is that from the late 1960s on, the Vietnam veteran has stood at the center of the debate concerning the wisdom and the meaning of the Vietnam War.”[6]

 

But were Vietnam veterans experiencing trauma and stress? VA records indicate that Vietnam veterans were indeed suffering from a host of various psycho-emotional conditions. The “nostalgia” of the 1860s was replaced with a progressively more modern labels: “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder” (PTSD) being the final prognosis. This category of mental illness or ‘syndrome’ was liberally used for more and more returning veterans as both, the war progressed. Subsequently the unpopularity of the war grew simultaneously. “PTSD, born in an era of vehement antiwar sentiment, cast its net widely over many aspects of human behavior that had never before been considered a ‘mental illness’.”[7]


Contrary to the Vietnam War with the association of veterans to mental health issues “Civil War veterans were generally not viewed as psychiatric victims.”[8] As in all wars, veterans who have experienced combat and the associated horrors all return home changed.  The nineteenth century absorbed those veterans in small towns and farms across both the Northern and Southern United States. For many, various institutions took care of them as they struggled to both understand what they had experienced and the way ahead. For many Vietnam veterans the politics of the war served those against the war to the detriment of the returning veterans on more than one occasion. A “Castellano” saying from Castile captures the experience of all combat veterans: 

“Cando van, cando rosas y cando ven ...ven como negros.” ‘

'When they go, they go like roses and when they return, they return like the [blacks-night].’

 Indeed they return like the darkness. And for many, the light is slow to return.



Bibliography

1.       Shay, Jonathan, “Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character”, Simon and Schuster, May 11, 2010, accessed on 8 October 2016.

 

2.      Hsia, Time, “Did Vietnam Change the Way We Welcome Veterans Home?”, The New York Times, November 11, 2012, http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/did-vietnam-change-the-way-we-welcome-veterans-home/?_r=0, accessed on 8 October 2016.

 

3.      Dean, Eric T, “Shook Over Hell: Post-traumatic Stress, Vietnam, and the Civil War”, Harvard University Press, 1997.

 

4.      Summerville, Diane Miller, “A Burden Too Heavy to Bear”, New York Times, Opinion Pages, April 2, 2012 http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/02/a-burden-too-heavy-to-bear/?_r=0, accessed on 10 October, 2016.

 

5.      Dean, Eric T, “Shook Over Hell: Post-traumatic Stress, Vietnam, and the Civil War”, Harvard University Press, 1997.

 

6.       Ibid, 183.

 

7.       Ibid, 202.

 

8.      Ibid, 204.



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