WWII Trauma

A man in the building where I live asked me a question about WWII – Do you feel veterans were treated fairly after the war? Here’s my answer.

Did we treat the veterans of this War fairly? I don’t think so.

For more than twenty years after the war, GIs were told it was their negative psychological attitudes that was the reason for their physical symptoms they had developed once they had returned home from the front lines of war, and they were using these symptoms as an excuse for why they were unwilling to hold a job. In other words, they were being told they were lazy and didn’t want to work.

It took over thirty years after WWII before this myth was acknowledged as an error by the country – Government, Military Leaders, and the public. Apperently, the only wounds that were “real” were the ones you can see, like a missing limb or a gapping hole where shrapnel entered. I’m sure there was correct information out there about internal injuries, but it wasn’t being applied to the problems these GIs were experiencing. It appears some policy maker felt the potential cost of caring for “invisible” injuries was far too great and the budget took precedence over these problems.

Researchers, making this correct data available to the public, forced the army to finally confirm what the GIs had been saying was true; their mental problems were not caused by their attitudes, but by their brain’s response to the violent shellings they had experienced for years during their tour of duty. The army had no choice but to finally acknowledge the truth and shell-sock is now a common word associated with this kind of injury.